The cyborg was huge, the size of some light warmechs at fifteen meters tall. Its armor was warsteel, painted and decorated, with chains hanging from it and spikes decorating it. Massive cannons on its back, missile launchers that looked more like air defense batteries, battle-screen projectors capable of putting out the equivalent of a Space Force Heavy Frigate's screens.
It wasn't the only one. There were hundreds, possibly thousands of them on the grassy plain. Most were still, others were moving with deliberate slowness, exaggerated movements that telegraphed what they were going to do.
The leader was knelt down, one fist grounded into the earth, the knuckles dug deep into the soft ground. Birds kept taking off from trees and landing on the massive cyborg before taking off again when it spoke.
"We shall protect these ones as you have requested. The Warsteel Cossacks of Siberia know what it is to be forced from our land," the massive cyborg rumbled. "We of the Tuvan Warsteel Horde will ensure no harm comes to them and shall protect them from any who seek to harm them."
"Thank you, Warlord Chugunkin," the Tnvaru matron said. She barely came up to the top of his foot, but she held her warsteel gripping stick tightly and stared with eyes clear of fear into the glowing cyberoptics of the massive cyborg.
"Are all of your people so brave as to enter the Tuvan Ranges, Tnvaru Matron Sangbre?" the cyborg asked.
Sangbre shook her head. "Like all peoples, my people have those who are brave and those who are not," she said.
"Much like those you have charged us with protecting," the Vodkatrog ruler said. He turned and looked behind him at where Lanaktallan females and calfs were moving around the high tech yurts, looking at the gardens, and milling around nervously. A few of the younger ones were looking up and talking to the massive cyborgs standing still in the middle of the area.
Sangbre watched as the massive cyborg slowly stood up and walked to where the transports had taken off. The grass and flowers were untouched by the counter-grav, just a slight twisted, almost runic pattern left behind. She hustled after him, Captain Manners right behind her.
The huge warlord of the Tuvan Warsteel Horde stopped and slowly, carefully turned around before kneeling again. He leaned his head down close to Sangbre, who managed to avoid flinching at the smell of lubricants, hot warsteel, and steam. The cyborg's eyes were red and his customized head looked like a warsteel skull with horns and fangs.
"My chrome witches have warned me, have warned all of the Warsteel Cossack Warlords, that should we fail to protect these innocent ones, then we fail in our eternal duty to Mother Rossiya," the cyborg said softly. "We vodkatrogs are strong, strong as warsteel, but we are defined by our mercy, or willingness to protect those weaker than ourselves."
Sangbre nodded, carefully and slowly. She had read that these people were touchy at the best of times, prideful and easily offended in the ways of honor.
"The witches, they wish to see you. See the Mother of the Defiant One with their own blind eyes," the warlord rumbled. He made a motion and a smaller cyborg, only three meters tall, moved up. "D-Mee3 will take you to them," he leaned a slight bit closer. "You will be the first non-vodkatrog to enter Mother Rossiya's embrace since the Glassing."
The new one, D-Mee3, gave a short, curt bow and straightened up. He held out one finger, where a sharp gleaming spike was raised up. "I must have a drop of blood from each of you. It is tradition."
Captain Manners stepped forward, tapping his palm against the spike. Sangbre saw it gleam with a drop of blood for a moment then there was a faint crackle.
Matron Sangbre had been exposed to enough of TerraSol's culture to know better than to back down, to show any fear, and she stepped forward and touched her catching hand's palm pad to the spike. She felt it flicker into her skin and withdraw.
D-Mee3 nodded and stepped back.
"Follow me," the crude appearing cyborg said, leading Matron Sangbre toward one of the caves in the cliff that bordered the area that the Cyborg Warlord of Vodkatrog Siberia had promised to defend. Sangbre had learned that the apparent crudity was an aesthetic choice, something to do with a long ago conflict that they could barely remembered called the War of the Bear and the Eagle.
They moved into the cave, the mouth opening into a much larger space full of gantries, loading mechanisms, and everything else needed to keep a Cyber-Cossack in fighting condition. It felt old to Sangbre in a way that she couldn't describe, despite the fact she knew it was less than 10,000 years old.
Beyond the cave was an elevator large enough to fit a dozen of the massive Warlord they had left outside. It felt strange to Sangbre that the three of them were the only occupants as the cage door rattled shut and the elevator began to move downward.
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"We journey into the arms and bosom of Mother Rossiya," D-Mee3 intoned. "Here our ancestors, our forebearers, worked in honest labor to earn an honest ruble. For centuries they worked, generation after generation, all working deep beneath the earth."
He motioned at the wall and Sangbre realized with a shock that there were skulls staring at her. Human skulls. Rows and rows of them cemented into the wall of the elevator shaft.
"We placed our dead to watch over us, to keep us safe, their names for all to see," D-Mee3 said.
Sangbre realized that there were names carved into the skulls, the carving inlaid with some kind of glittering white crystalline substance.
"My ancestors look upon me, Tnvaru," D-Mee3 said. "Can you say the same?"
"No," Sangbre breathed. "I was stolen from their sight."
The ride was silent for a few minutes, slowly moving past the row after row after row of engraved skulls. It suddenly hissed and came to a stop. D-Mee3 moved up next to Sangbre and pointed at a grouping of skulls.
"These are the Childless Ones," he said, his voice somber. "Your hand."
Sangbre gripped her gripping stick tightly as she held out one of her catching hands. D-Mee3 lifted a finger and a blade popped out. Sangbre looked at Captain Manners, who just nodded, his face serious. Before she could look back the cyborg had cut her palm-pad, gashing it so that blood oozed.
Sangbre gritted her teeth at the pain but showed no other sign of it as the cyborg pulled her forward and pushed her hand against the forehead of one of the skulls. Her blood soaked into the crystals on the forehead, the slash starting to burn. Sparks, then flickers of red, blue, and white lightning began to move down Sangbre's arm and she clamped her jaws to keep from crying out as it covered her in a cocoon.
"She sees you," D-Mee3 intoned as the white crystals in the eyes turned slowly red. "She accepts you."
The lightning vanished, leaving Sangbre gasping.
The cyborg released Sangbre's burning hand and stepped back. The elevator started to move again. Sangbre looked at her hand, noting the way crystals glimmered in the wound, how the bleeding had somehow staunched. She sniffed it, then lapped at the wound.
Sodium chloride.
Salt.
"A sea died here to give our people life," D-Mee3 said. "We dug deep, and we left our mark where we had been."
The elevator came to a stop and Sangbre swallowed thickly.
"You will need this," the cyborg said, stepping forward with a face-mask. She pulled it on, inhaling and feeling air rush against her face as Captain Manners put one on. The cyborg looked at Captain Manners. "Long ago, your forefathers labored here too. Your ancestors see you, Space Force."
Captain Manners gave a slight jerky bow as the heavy door slid open.
The cavern was dark ahead and Sangbre followed the cyborg into the darkness. Her skin prickled with the feel of low air pressure as her shoes clanged against the floor panels that made up the walkway. She was halfway across when the lights slowly came on.
Matron Sangbre gasped and stopped, looking around her.
Salt had been carved to look like the front of buildings. Salt stalagmites had been carved to look like people, the stalactites had been carved to look like what Sangbre had learned were angels. The details, the artisanship was undeniable and it took her breath away.
It was all carved of salt.
"Our forefathers, and yours, created art to bring life to these caverns, beneath the earth," D-Mee3 said, still leading them forward until they entered tunnels.
The tunnels were carved on every inch of the walls and ceilings. Human faces, animals, pillars, windows, building facades.
"Then the Mantid Attack came," D-Mee3 said. "Many of our people died, but many more fled down here, to the mines."
"How long must live as troglodytes?" a woman's angry voice asked as they passed a statue of a woman with heavy cybernetic arms that were obviously designed to help her mine. "Crouching down here while others fight to wrest our planet back from the bug men?"
In the next cave a crowd was gathered to listen to a woman in front of bas-relief of a cave. The crowd was full of cyborgs, all of them slated for mining to Sangbre's eyes.
All carved from salt.
"Are we going to huddle in the darkness and drink vodka till the Mantids kill us all? Or will we fight?" the woman's voice was angry. "What will you do when the vodka is gone?"
Another cave, another carved diaroma done life-sized.
"Troglodytes the city dwellers called us when they mocked us! Perhaps, but the legends all agree, troglodytes would leave their caves at night and kill those who displeased them," the woman's passion was fiery and Sangbre found herself nodding with it as she looked at the salt statue of the woman, who had her fist upraised. The crowd had their fists upraised. "Let the Mantid fear us then! We dwell in darkness and rule the night and the Mantid have displeased us!"
The next few caves had mining cyborgs fighting against the Mantid, crushing them with hammers, splitting them apart with jackhammers, ripping them apart with rock chewers.
"MOTHER ROSSIYA WILL NOT YIELD!" a hundred voices bellowed out in the next cave. "VODKA, WARSTEEL, AND BLOOD!"
The tunnels became more winding, leading downward, became tighter. Still D-Mee3 led them on until finally he stopped next to a door made entirely of Mantid skulls.
"Beyond here are the Daughter's of Chrome Baba-Yaga, who hunted in the night in a hut carried by Mantid Speaker legs," D-Mee3 said. He rapped on the door and then looked at Captain Manners. "Their words are for the Tnvaru Matron Sangbre and her alone."
Captain Manners nodded, folding his arms and waiting.
The door swung open and Sangbre entered the darkness beyond, her hands holding tight to her gripping stick.
The door shut behind her.
After an unknown amount of time the door opened and Sangbre half fell out, catching herself barely and leaning heavily on her gripping stick, breathing hard.
The door shut silently.
She looked up at Captain Manners with warsteel eyes, the fur around her eyes stark white. She had a red streak in her fur from the back of her head, up between her ears, down between her eyes, and to the point of her nose.
"The Unified Council is coming. We must get the refugees to the Defiant Caverns," she gasped. She looked at D-Mee3. "Hurry, Faithful One. Do not let the blood of innocents spill upon Mother Rossiya's bosom."
The bulky crude looking cyborg bowed. "As you say.
"Matron."