Rachel had just arrived at the Pilot Labs on level 283 of the White Spear. She stood next to Parker in Pilot Lab F, staring at Raymond Dorran, Andrew Gosling and Paul Traymore who filled the Sphynx-V chairs around her. The Implants laid on their backs, with their eyes closed, but she could see their pupils darting back and forth beneath their eye lids as though they were all having bad dreams. She sympathised with their situation. In many ways, she was having a nightmare too.
Parker was doing his best to turn the Pilot Lab into a makeshift operations room. He had found a padded chair somewhere and placed it in the middle of the room for Rachel to sit on, even though she had told him she would rather stand. Sitting down felt like a luxury that she couldn't afford under the current circumstances.
It was unusual to see so many emotions flowing across Parker's pale face. He was trying to show Rachel what was happening outside, but it was clear that he was having difficulty filtering the enormous amounts of data that passed through his neural implants into some kind of summary that might mean anything at all to a normal human being. Kain had managed something similar with the virtual dashboard that he had constructed in the Operations Room.
'Have you heard anything from Kain?' Rachel said.
Parker shook his head. After a few seconds, he succeeded in projecting several views onto the wall in front of her. His pink eyes blinked as various visual logs appeared in a circular pattern across the wall. One of the views showed their own Pilot Lab with Rachel and Parker standing amongst the Sphynx-V chairs, and half a dozen members of the security forces hanging around the doorway. Rachel watched herself as though she was watching a stranger. She moved her arm and verified that the movement appeared on the visual log just to be sure it was her.
'We should announce General Markov's death,' she said.
Parker turned towards her. 'Do you think that's wise? It could cause panic amongst the lower ranks.'
A soldier coughed at the back of the room. Rachel could hear them whispering under their breath.
'They deserve to know the truth,' Rachel said.
'What about Drefnig? Should I mention what happened to him?'
'Not yet. Wait until we have confirmation. Rumours won't help anyone.'
'Okay,' Parker said. 'I'm sending out an updated to everyone in the towers.'
'Thanks, Parker.' Rachel rubbed a hand through her hair. The towers were her responsibility now, hundreds of years of history resting heavily on her shoulders. The people of Cinnamon City were relying on her too. They huddled in their shelters, somewhere in the Old Quarter, waiting for the security forces to restore peace and harmony to their once calm city. So many needs pulled at her from every side but she wouldn't let them overwhelm her. She pushed them down her fears and stood strong as the Voice of Central Command. She would face each problem one at a time.
As the seconds passed, the pain throbbed across her face and hands. She hadn't taken the time to look at herself, but judging by the reaction of the soldiers when she had entered the room, she knew her injuries must be bad.
When she heard a noise behind her, she turned and saw two medical droids entering the room. She hadn't requested any medical help. She guessed that Parker must have called them on her behalf. One of them walked over to the side of the room before sitting down and curling itself into a ball. The other approached her and stood on its hind legs, rising up in front of her as it applied a cool gel to her face. The relief was immediate. She hadn't realised how much pain she had been in until the gel seeped into her dry, burnt skin. When a tingling sensation ran through her hands, she glanced down and saw that the droid had applied the gel to the back of her hands too. Rachel shooed the medical droid away, feeling better already.
Parker coughed beside her, rubbing a hand across his throat.
'Are you okay?' Rachel said, glancing in his direction.
Parker nodded as he continued to arrange his projected views across the far wall.
Rachel watched as the story of the towers unfolded before her eyes. She turned her attention to the upper left visual log first. It showed the Augmented climbing up the sides of Tower Four with smooth sinuous movements. She had never seen such creatures before. They were far from human, though their torsos had the shape of a man. They were repugnant to her eyes. Their strange movements reminded her of insects that crawled away after being disturbed beneath a damp rock.
Instead of legs, they had a mass of writhing tentacles that stretched out around them on every side. Their arms were short and thick, covered in intricate swirling black lines. Rachel shuddered. She had a bad feeling about them, a feeling that wouldn't go away.
Her comms unit vibrated, emitting two short beeps to announce that multiple incoming calls had been queued, awaiting her attention. She guessed that Parker had redirected Markov's comms traffic to her. Calls were now coming in faster than she could answer them. She tapped her jacket collar over and over, accepting them one by one.
Tower Five control room wanted to know whether it could open fire on the Augmented. Rachel told them no, they couldn't risk damaging the tower walls.
Tower Three wanted to know what had happened to General Markov. She said he had died an honourable death, killed in the defence of the towers. She would send a full report when all this was over.
She deferred a call from the cafeteria. They would have to sort out their own problems. She didn't have time to deal with burnt soup.
It was frustrating, fighting a battle inside the tower shields. The White Spear couldn't strike the Augmented in case it damaged Tower Four, and Tower Four couldn't use its own weapons effectively against an enemy that was already climbing its walls. Rachel found herself trying to defend the towers from a scenario that was never meant to happen.
'Parker,' she said, sounding more calm than she felt.
'Yes?'
'Can you fill me in on what Markov and Drefnig were dealing with before the Kamari took out the Operations Room. I was with them but I wasn't expecting to be taking over command. I want to make sure I haven't missed anything.'
'The Kamari army is led by a man called Jacob Helleron,' Parker said, staring right through her.
Rachel was so used to him staring up at the ceiling or down at the floor that she found it unnerving to have direct eye contact with him. It didn't help that his eyes were so pink. She tried not to show her discomfort but his eyes soon drifted back towards the ceiling anyway.
'What has he done so far?' she said. 'Those creatures are inside the shields. I still don't understand how that happened?'
'We believe Jacob may be piloting the long gold vehicle that you can see on the top right view. It broadcasts its name as the Behemoth.'
Rachel scanned her eyes across the many views that had been laid out before her. There, in the top right corner she could see the gold monstrosity that Parker was talking about. 'What else?'
'There was a silver cylinder in front of the Behemoth a short time ago. Something happened and it passed through the shields, appearing in front of Tower Four.'
'I remember that, but how is it possible?'
'We don't know yet. The Kamari fired thousands of weapons at Tower Five and Tower Three in a very short period of time. The tower shields were overloaded but Tower Four leant them strength, as it should now that the shields are merged.'
'Did the shields fail?'
'No. The shields shared their strength as they are meant to do. They did not fail. Tower Four leant too much strength to the others, leaving itself on low reserves for a short time.'
'So Tower Four's shield failed?'
'No. It didn't fail either, but somehow the silver cylinder passed through it while the shield was not at full strength. The Heart detected a momentary fluctuation in the shield at that time.'
'What was it?'
'A similar fluctuation happened recently to our own Dome Shield. Alice investigated it at the time. When I asked her about it she said that the matter had not been resolved.'
Rachel shook her head. 'Okay. So we don't understand how they did that. We'll have to come back to it. What about the Augmented? What about that droid? Where did they come from?'
'They were inside the cylinder.'
'Why didn't we stop them before they got onto the tower walls?'
'We tried. They have personal shields and they move fast. The droid took out the Operations Room with some kind of energy weapon. It looked like black lightning, fired at long range. The Heart thinks it's a war droid, something designed by the lords for use during the Iridium Wars.'
Rachel stared into the distance. Memories stirred of a wide stone building with hundreds of war droids swarming out of it like ants. The hairs rose on the back of her neck as she pushed the image out of her mind. Those weren't her memories. They were someone else's nightmares from another time.
'How did it know?'
'How did what know what?' Parker said.
'How did the war droid know to hit the Operations Room? How did it know that was where we were controlling the battle from, and how did it know where that room was by just looking at the White Spear from outside? It would require knowledge of our schematics and some insight as to whether the room was in use or not.'
'I don't know Parker said. We have to assume the war droid has access to our systems.'
Rachel folded her arms. 'How can that be so?'
'The malware. We still haven't found it all.'
'There's something more to this,' Rachel said. 'We're missing something.' She glanced at the Implants on their Sphynx-V chairs around her. Sweat covered their brows, and their faces were masks of pain and concentration. She could do with some of their multitasking abilities right now.
'Does the war droid know we have moved our command centre to the Pilot Labs? Can it strike us again here?'
'It may know,' Parker said. 'We can't be sure, but it can't strike us right now.'
'Why?'
'The war droid has entered Tower Four. It's on the south side of us.'
'How does that make us safe?'
'The Pilot Labs are on the north side of the White Spear.'
'Oh.'
'We have to do something,' Parker said, 'before it's too late.'
Rachel nodded. She had been catching up with the situation, but now she had to act quickly before things got any worse.
'Move all the Monkey Droids over to Tower Four,' she said. 'Can you get them to jump across the towers so they can start from the top of Tower Four, rather than having to climb all the way down whichever tower they are on currently, and then climbing up from the bottom of Tower Four? Those Augmented move fast. We'll need to be quick to catch up with them.'
Parker nodded. 'I'm sending the orders now. The droids on the other towers will need to climb down to the gangways at least. They can cross over to Tower Four from there and start from level 142.'
'That won't be good enough,' Rachel said. 'The Augmented have almost reached that level already. Can't the Monkey Droids jump from tower to tower?'
'That's a one hundred metre jump. They won't make it.'
'Try anyway. A few droids higher up will slow the Augmented a lot more than a whole bunch of droids chasing after them from below.'
'I'll see what I can do but it's not what they were designed for. Expect losses.'
Rachel heard a noise behind her. When she turned, she saw Commander David Rodnig walking towards her through the open door. His grey eyes appraised her from a face that was covered in old scars. He was a veteran among the soldiers but he possessed a mental strength that she couldn't help but admire. Everyone respected him. The troopers in the doorway straightened their backs as he walked past them.
'Thanks for coming,' Rachel said. 'We need all the help we can get right now. The Operations Room is down. We haven't had any contact from Commander Drefnig since it was taken out.'
'What about General Markov? Is it true?'
'He's dead.'
Rodnig lowered his eyes to the floor. 'How did it happen.'
'The Operations Room was hit hard. His body was weak after the assassination attempt. If he had been at full health, perhaps he would have survived.'
'War is cruel,' Rodnig said.
Rachel nodded. 'I tried to save him but I was too late.'
'You are the Voice of the towers now?'
'Yes. This is our temporary control room.'
'What do they want?' Rodnig said. 'Why are those things running up the tower walls like that?'
'Jacob has researched the towers well before his attack,' Parker said. 'He knows the tower defences are designed to fight against ground attacks and airborne drones. If the Augmented had attacked us from inside the building, they would have met heavy resistance on every level. Climbing the tower walls is the path of least resistance now that they are inside the tower shields. They know we're unlikely to use the tower guns against our own towers. In some ways, our new shield configurations have not helped us at all.'
'The merged shields are keeping the rest of Jacob's army outside the Grand Plaza,' Rachel said. 'We shouldn't forget that.'
Parker leant his head to one side. 'True.'
Rodnig stared at the projected views on the wall. 'The droid has entered Tower Four hasn't it?'
'Yes,' Parker said.
'So won't it have to fight through every level one by one? I thought you said that was a bad strategy?'
'It is.'
'But they have done it anyway. There must be some logic behind their plan? The Kamari have put a lot of thought into this. What do you think their target is?'
Rachel folded her arms beneath her breasts. 'I don't know. The Augmented seem to be heading towards the higher levels. There must be something up there that they want to get to quickly, while the droid takes us apart from the inside.'
'Maybe they're heading for the Wasp Drone flight decks to neutralise the drones?' Parker said.
Andrew Gosling spoke from his Sphynx-V chair beside them but he didn't open his eyes. 'They could be heading for the top of the tower, with the intention of attacking us from there. Fighting their way down through the middle of the tower would be easier than fighting their way up from the bottom. Perhaps they intend to squeeze us from both ends and meet the droid somewhere in the middle.'
Rodnig shook his head. 'It's too much trouble for too little gain. It would still be difficult for them to fight their way down through the middle of the tower in such confined spaces. We could activate shields across the stairwells on every level to slow their progress. So far they've known an awful lot about how Central Command works. Do you think they would be ignorant about this? I can't imagine it. I think the Kamari must have a more specific goal in mind. They didn't come here just to fight.'
'What do you think they want?' Rachel said.
'I don't think they care about the Wasp Drones. Did you see how easily that Behemoth knocked them out of the sky? They have flying droids too, much faster than ours, and with munitions more advanced than we'll ever understand. This is easy for them. No, I don't think they're worried about our Wasp Drones at all.'
'What then?' Rachel said. 'Why else would they go to all this trouble to get three augmented on top of Tower Four? What would it gain them except for a nice view?'
Parker frowned, an expression forming on his face that Rachel didn't like at all.
'What is it?' she said.
Parker's cheek twitched several times in rapid succession. 'I think they're trying to take down the tower shields.'
'They're already inside the shields,' Rodnig said. 'Why would they worry about taking down the shields now?'
'The Augmented are inside,' Parker said, 'but the rest of the Kamari army is still outside on the Grand Plaza. I think Jacob wants the shields down so the Behemoth and the Walkers can launch a full scale ground assault.'
'That's madness,' Rodnig said. 'They'll never succeed.'
Rachel shook her head. 'That's it. I know it is. They're going for the shield engineering room. What level is it on, Parker?'
'Level 260 in Tower Four. If the Kamari gain access to the shield engineering level, they can destroy the shields from the inside.'
'What would happen if they did that? I thought the shields were merged?'
'If Tower Four lost its shield control systems, the other towers would try to compensate on its behalf, but I'm not sure how well they could cover for a complete shield failure. I suspect that without any communication from Tower Four's shield control systems, the other towers would be forced to reconfigure themselves to exclude Tower Four from the merged shield entirely.'
'Tower Four would have no shield at all,' Rodnig said. 'It would be outside the merged shield, powerless to defend against the Kamari army.'
Rachel ground her teeth. This was beginning to sound like a worse case scenario. She stared up at the ceiling, finding it hard to believe how quickly the battle had deteriorated. All their preparations had amounted to nothing. All their planned scenarios didn't fit what was happening.
'Parker, send all the Monkey Droids to protect Tower Four's shield engineering level, and the munitions level as well. They may have secondary targets. We need to think about what levels they would gain the most from attacking and defend those first.'
'Yes, I'm doing that now.'
Rachel stared at the projected views that Parker had arranged on the wall. She could see the Monkey Droids already throwing themselves from the sides of Tower Three and Tower Five, leaping a across the hundred metre gap towards Tower Four. Many fell short, plummeting to the Grand Plaza below.
The Monkey Droids were designed for jumping and falling, but even they had their tolerances. Those that jumped from the lower levels found it hard to cover the distance but they landed on the Grand Plaza on all fours and ran across to the adjacent tower.
Those that leapt from the higher levels had a greater degree of success because they could fall further, continuing their trajectory until they reached the opposite tower, but they found it hard to grab hold of the tower walls after such a hard landing. They struck the tower walls with such force that many bounced off and tumbled away, hands grasping at nothing as they fell to the Grand Plaza below. The drop was too far for them. They smashed into the hard white stone with enough force to shatter their chassis and leave them lying at odd angles with liquid squirting out from their ruptured bodies. She could see their broken limbs twitching as they tried in vein to get back to their feet.
'This is bad,' she said.
A few Monkey Droids managed to cling on to the tower walls after their leap of faith. They ascended as fast as they could, gaining on the Augmented with every step.
'It's not going to be enough,' Parker said. 'The Monkey Droids can't stop them on their own.'
Rachel opened a comms link to Tower Four's Operations Room. 'Send everything you've got to the shield engineering level right now.'
The voice that came back was breathless and on edge. 'There's a massive fight going on at the base of the tower. We need everything we've got down there right now. There's some kind of war droid tearing us apart. I don't know what chassis it is. We can't get a match on it.'
Rachel gazed around the room, her eyes lost in thought as she spoke into her comms unit once more. 'The Augmented are going for the shield engineering room. If they gain entry, you will have no shields at all. You'll drop out of the merged shield and be an open target for the whole Kamari army.'
Multiple voices spoke at once before another man spoke clearly through the comms unit. 'Are you sure that's their target? If we send forces to the shield engineering level, we will certainly lose control of the lower levels. The droid is already on level 5. Casualties are high and the damage is off the scale of anything we've seen so far.'
'We're sure,' Rachel said. 'Protect the shield engineering room above all other considerations. We'll do what we can to help at ground level.'
'Okay,' the man said. 'I hope you're right about this, otherwise we're all dead.' The comms link shut down before Rachel could reply.
'We're playing with high stakes,' Rodnig said from an expressionless face.
'Do you think I'm wrong?' Rachel said.
Rodnig paused, staring into her eyes but he finally shook his head. 'War doesn't wait for anyone. Sometimes being right or wrong isn't what's important. The advantage goes to whoever acts first. We need to anticipate the enemy's every move and make sure we block their plans before they can happen.'
Rachel nodded. 'We'll block them. We should give them something to think about too.'
'Of course.'
'Parker, Can you send some Spider Droids to Tower Four,' Rachel said. 'We need to take out that droid.'
'I can do that,' Gosling said from his Sphynx-V chair beside her. 'You guys focus on the Augmented.'
'Thanks, Andrew,' Rachel said. She just hoped it would be enough.