‘The barbs should extend on impact,’ said Ada. Robots were already running forward, seizing hold of the cable. Pulling at it. To no avail. The craft was rising into the air, dragging them up with it. More devices streaking forward. Piercing the craft. More cables. Storm Troopers took hold of them, other robots gripping their bodies. Bazookas and guns were trained on the craft. The orange bands of light that ran the craft’s extent flickered, the ascent hesitated, halted, and slowly, the black and gold ship began to tilt sideways.
‘Pull!’ called Ada. ‘Pull!’
‘Pull, Pull,’ came the shout, echoed by all those robots on the plain that dragged at the huge ship.
More devices slammed into the craft, cables whipping across the battlefield, tangling around robots, cutting them in two. Other robots took their place, seizing the ropes and pulling. Robots climbed the wires, adding their weight to the craft. Wires snapped and robots tumbled to the ground. But some of them made it inside the craft itself. The turning point was reached. The craft was descending.
‘Pull!’
They were whaling. Whaling for a craft from another planet. It slid earthwards, it clipped the perimeter of the compound. The lights across its hull winked, once, twice and then went out. With a grinding shriek, the ship ploughed its way into the ground.
Stamp, stamp, stamp!
A huge cheer sounded.
‘Now, take it!’ said Kavan, and he smiled.
The Generals ran towards the stricken human craft, the last bands of colour fading from its side.
Spoole would have put a bullet through their heads. Kavan was a fool to put them in the middle of the charge, where they could let the other soldiers form a protective wall around themselves and allow better robots to take the flak for them.
‘The guns!’ called Sandale. ‘Aim for the guns!’
Obediently, the surrounding Storm Troopers turned their bazookas towards the turrets that had sprung open on the downed craft’s side and were already rippling bullets towards them.
As they closed on the craft its enormous size became apparent, and Spoole was filled with wonder at just what the Generals had attempted. How could they have been so foolish as to try and make a deal with these creatures? Just how powerful were the humans in comparison? He was reminded of the story of Janet Verdigris, how she had made a deal with the robots beneath the world.
Something screamed like a buzzsaw being crushed by an adamantium snake; something whipped across the battlefield and half the robots beside him flashed and died, their bodies had been sliced in two, the parts tumbling to the ground.
‘There!’ cried Sandale, and Spoole saw something hurtling forward through the crowd.
‘The devices!’ observed Spoole. ‘More of them!’
They looked up to see Ada’s inventions streaking overhead, heading towards the second and larger of the human craft as it rose into the air, seeking escape. Its bulk blocked the sky above them.
‘Idiots!’ screamed Sandale. ‘Trailing cable through the battlefield! Don’t they realize they could hit us?’
He still hadn’t got it, reflected Spoole. He still didn’t see that he was expendable.
An explosion up ahead drew his attention back to the battlefield.
‘We breached it!’ called a Storm Trooper. ‘We blew a hole in the side!’
Spoole looked and saw. The grounded ship was ripped open near the nose. Infantryrobots were already forcing their way in, peeling back lovely long strips of the strange human alloy.
‘We’re in!’ shouted Sandale. ‘Robots of Artemis! Attack!’
The call was unnecessary. What else would the robots do? Spoole watched as the Generals assumed control of the capture of the spaceship. They were back in power already.
Kavan was a fool, he thought once more.
Susan’s body had been broken when she was hurled from the troop train as it ran off the end of the lines at speed. Two engineers had found her and quickly put her back together again, then sent her on her way. She joined the other infantryrobots heading towards the human compound. And then the air had filled with so much metal that she had dropped, terrified, in a shell hole, and waited for the battle to stop.
A Storm Trooper sheltered there too, and she had felt his shame as he crouched there, big black hands clasped above his head. He had said something she couldn’t catch amidst all the noise.
Eventually the firing passed over, and she raised her head up to see the smaller of the human ships rising into the air, the target of those strange devices that streaked towards it, dragging cables of destruction through the battlefield behind them. Several of the devices became entangled and were jerked to a halt in mid air, ripping themselves apart in red and yellow fire.
She saw the ship fall and break itself open on the ground, and she paused, gripped by indecision. Where would Nettie be? On the craft? In the compound?
What good would it do her if she got killed here on the battlefield?
There were engineers everywhere, running across the stony plain. One came towards her, shouting. Susan turned up her ears a little to hear what he was saying.
‘Take this,’ he said, thrusting a metal mesh into her hand. ‘Pull it over your head. Don’t take it off until you’re told to.’
She did so automatically. The mesh interfered with her hearing, muffling it. Well, that was good.
The second human ship was lifting up now. What if Nettie was on board that one? The devices were aiming for it, but it seemed just too large to bring down. What if it escaped with Nettie still a prisoner?
There was nothing she could do about that.
She made up her mind and ran for the compound. Maybe Nettie would be there.
She couldn’t just stand still, that was for sure.
Kavan saw the second human ship lift into the breaking dawn, the cables of several devices trailing uselessly from it.
‘It’s escaping,’ said Ada, the disappointment audible in her voice.
‘It will be back,’ said Kavan. ‘They’ll all be back.’
‘The Generals have taken the first craft,’ said Calor. ‘Do you think it’s wise to leave them in control of it?’
‘I don’t think it matters,’ said Kavan. ‘Everything will be different by tomorrow. Artemis City is changed for ever.’
Behind him the Centre City burned. Ada had set up a radiation detector that pinged a signal of the atomic destruction there.
‘Calor,’ said Kavan. ‘There are still humans left in the compound. I think it would be well to remind the troops we want as many of them alive as possible.’
‘Okay, Kavan.’ Calor’s words trailed behind her as she sprinted off.
‘She needed to expend the energy,’ observed Ada. She watched Kavan, running the fine metal mesh she had handed him between his fingers.
‘You should put that on,’ she said.
‘When it’s time. Are you sure it will work?’