Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [217]
The Soldier compy raised DD overhead, prepared to disassemble him; two other military robots lurched forward to add their metal muscle, but Sirix’s buzzing voice halted them. “Do not destroy him.” Scarlet eye sensors glowed balefully like orbs formed of hot embers. “This is an example of how slavery corrupts these competent computerized companions. No rational mind would have taken such useless action, but DD was forced to make this defiant, but ultimately pointless, gesture.”
Sirix scuttled over to where DD dangled in the air, caught in the grasp of the Soldier compy. “Observe, DD—you caused very little harm. This battleship is equipped with three redundant weapons consoles, and even without the Juggernaut we have five fully armed Manta cruisers to continue the destruction of an unarmed colony. Your struggle was for nothing.”
“Nevertheless, I could not fail to act.”
Sirix moved heavily back to the central bridge station to oversee the conclusion of the Corribus operation.
DD amplified his voice. “It is what I want to do. I desire to stop you.” Even without the restrictive programming the Klikiss robots scorned, he would have chosen to do the same thing. He could not stand by while so many innocent colonists were slaughtered.
“You do not understand your own actions.”
In the colony below, despite DD’s best efforts, nothing remained but smoking debris and bodies. Everything had been destroyed.
“Observe closely,” Sirix said as the hijacked battleship descended toward the rubble of the canyon floor. DD didn’t want to see firsthand the results of the massacre. “This was merely a practice run for our ultimate plan, a demonstration of our new attack force. We judge the exercise an unqualified success.”
The engines hummed, then slowed as the Juggernaut came to rest against the ground like a beached whale. The Soldier compies marched in ranks from the bridge, preparing to disembark and complete the total sterilization of Corribus. Sirix observed with apparent satisfaction.
“Therefore, we will proceed with the full-scale plan against the rest of humanity.”
Chapter 110 — ORLI COVITZ
The attack went on for what seemed like hours, and Orli huddled against the wall of her cave shelter. If this alcove had remained intact for ten thousand years, unscathed even by the superweaponry that had melted the granite cliffs and exterminated the Klikiss, then she was probably safe. But adrenaline made her heart hammer, and she crouched in the deepest corner of the chamber.
Outside, everyone else was being slaughtered…including her father. And she could do nothing to help. What had they done to provoke this? And who were the attackers?
Eventually, she heard no more of the faint screams, only the crackle of energy blasts and the boom of distant explosions mixed with the roar of engines. With shaking knees, she crept forward, certain in her heart that every other living human on Corribus must be dead. Smoke filled the canyon, drifting upward in greasy black plumes. The whole settlement had been flattened and burned. Nothing remained whatsoever.
The communications tower and its control shack had been vaporized; she knew her father would have been inside it. Her halfhearted friends must also be dead, all the colonist families, her pet, the acquaintances she had made in their short time here.
She heard the roar of spaceship engines change pitch and decrease to muffled booms. Peeking out through the narrow cave entrance, Orli saw the six EDF vessels land under the smoky sunlight. The massacre was complete.
The Juggernaut was so huge it barely fit between the canyon walls, but the pilot had guided it down without hesitation. When the doorways opened and figures streamed down ramps to the valley floor, she recognized the insectlike forms of giant Klikiss robots. Next, Soldier-model compies built in Hansa factories filed out beside the black-shelled alien machines.
Tears streaked her dusty face. Orli couldn’t cry out, didn’t dare call attention to herself here, so high up on the cliff wall.