So this is what godhead feels like, Rene thought dimly. What a bloody headache!
Through the whirl of images and flashing lights he could discern that he was standing in the center of a vast dome whose walls were completely transparent. Blocks of figures, fluctuating graphs and meaningless symbols trawled across the crystal surface, overwhelming his senses with information he simply could not understand. Whistles and alarms blared from every direction while in the background the monotonous female voice repeated itself over and over again:
“Warning. Fuel rods at 95% depletion. Power saving mode is advised.”
Rene flinched at a sudden migraine, raising his hand to shield his eyes from the dazzling display. But in response to this gesture, the Divine Engine responded by summoning forth ghostly hallucinations, impressions of solid shapes rendered in spectral green light. Rene reeled from them, tripping over his own feet and nearly faceplanting onto the metal floor. Likewise, the Engine tilted over and smashed headfirst into the bulk of Mound 13. Rene threw up his arms, fully expecting the glass dome to smash apart upon impact with the cyclopean mass of rock. But instead, the mound itself caved in, plunging Rene’s world into darkness.
“Optic feed lost,” the spirit informed Rene as he picked himself back up again, “Activate ventral searchlights?”
Two words winked into existence before him: YES on the left, and NO on the right. Rene reached out with a trembling finger, and feeling rather like a child attempting to mash the square peg into the round hole, pointed at Yes.
Instantly he was bathed in illumination, brilliant beams of light chasing away the pitch blackness and replacing it with the stuff of nightmares. Thousands upon thousands of tiny Amits stared back at him, crowded beneath the honeycombed interior of their subterranean dwellings. Rene had always known them to be prodigious architects, but the extent and complexity of Mound 13 took his breath away. By accidentally headbutting his way inside, he’d created a perfect cross-section of the mound’s interior, laying bare everything from the nurseries and royal chambers at the base, to the cavernous main hive and the ancillary galleries at the core, to the conical ventilation shafts. Below each graceful archway and chamber the Amits cringed, frozen by the sudden apparition that had burst into their lives.
Seeing them now at their most vulnerable, Rene’s lips unconsciously drew back in a snarl, his fright replaced by cold certainty.
I might not know how to operate this heap, Rene told himself, but I will find a way to make them pay.
“Make. Them. Pay!” he muttered aloud. In his mind’s eye he saw Lethway’s face framed between the musket’s sights once again, could make out the expression on Lethway’s face as he had recognized Rene. Once again Rene felt the kick of the musket butt against his shoulder as he’d squeezed the trigger, saw Lethway clutch at his heart and fall over through a shroud of gun smoke.
He had killed his friend for nothing! Mound Euler, Deschane, Lethway and all his comrades-in-arms of the 3rd Pathfinder Regiment. All of them, dead! For nothing! Tears burned his eyes and ran down his cheeks, lubricating the strange metal filaments that had bored under his lids and taken root in his brain. Rene struck out blindly, punching and shoving at the air. The Engine followed suit, righting itself and pushing clear of the debris. As it moved the green phantasms shifted and Rene finally understood what they were: a miniaturized map of the surrounding topography, giving the operator of the Engine a bird’s eye perspective of the outside world. Standing in the center of it was a little figurine of the Engine itself. As expected, it had a domelike head which unlike the transparent-seeming interior was fashioned from a completely solid and completely sealed-off helm. A single menacing red eye sat blinking at the center of the dome where a face would have been.
The head was fused directly to the bulky torso, the latter of which was flanked by buttress-like shoulders which sported enormous curved pauldrons. They reminded Rene of the ancients sets of iron armor in the museum back home which primitive warriors had worn in early days of the Amit War. But rather than lance and shield, the Engine was equipped with an arsenal of strange tools. One vaguely resembled a saw, except that each ‘sawtooth’ was a shovel-like blade that was clearly meant for excavation. The other was a claw with a mammoth drill head protruding from the palm and enclosed by the four grasping digits.
Rene flexed his right hand and the earthsaw began to spin, the excavator blades rotating up and down the length of the arm with the harsh shriek of rusted metal in motion.
“Right,” Rene whispered hoarsely, “Let’s see what this old wreck can do.”
He rammed the earthsaw into the heart of the Mound and saw the countless chambers gnawed into dust upon impact, glimpsed Amits buried screaming in the showers of rubble. Rene swung the earthsaw up and across, toppling the spires above and sending them hurtling down the chutes, effectively smothering the lungs of the mound. One after another, like the layers of a chandelier sent crashing to the ground, each level of the mound buckled beneath the weight of the collapsing mountain. Thousands were buried in an instant, the crags echoing with the sound of their demise. Across the topographic map the aftershock rippled out into the canyons in the form of dozens of avalanches, choking the valleys with boulders and uprooting entire forests.
Rene raised his left hand and the drill spun in ponderous revolutions, the fingers of the hand folding back to give it free reign. He punched the drill into the rubble heap and bored a hole through the mountainside. Withdrawing the drill arm, he uncovered whole nests to shell-shocked survivors, covered in dust and too stunned to moved. All the Amits could do was cringe and cower as he loomed above them, the avatar of their annihilation.
“Did you think you could escape?” he seethed, “There is no sanctuary here. You’ll burn! All of you! BURN!”
“Do you wish to initiate atmospheric ignition?” queried the sterile voice of the Engine. Once more came the two choices: Yes or No.
“Oh, you know I do,” Rene laughed, liking the sound of those words. He stabbed a finger at the affirmative option and the red eye in the center of the Engine’s forehead flashed, warning klaxons going off as it gathered its mysterious energies.
“Laser platform online. Awaiting your command," the Engine said politely. Rene stared coldly down at the shell-shocked masses of Amits and consigned them to death with a single word:
“Fire.”
