The last raptor jumped in the hole, the room filled with broken automatons and Ateyan soldiers.

“Do you have a plan?” Revin said.

Beadoróf shook his head, “Not anymore. We need to weaken Narazoth’s ability to command his troops.”

“Help!” a voice shouted, a woman’s voice.

They were in the detention block. Jail cells surrounded him with thick bars.

“Help!” he heard again.

He heard a metallic clank. Beadoróf was shifting quickly, trying to figure it out. “Omrai’s daughter?”

Revin nodded.

Beadoróf frowned, “Sounds like another trap.”

Without another word, Revin ran toward the sound, checking each cell.

“Revin!” Beadoróf shouted. “Stop!”

There she was, in a large jail cell with all the baby giganotos.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

“Shifra! You’re ok!” He grabbed the cell door and it swung open with ease.

It wasn’t even locked. He looked at it in confusion.

“Revin!” Shifra said.

The juvenile giganotos growled at Revin, and one stood uncomfortably close to Shifra with its teeth bared. Narazoth’s voice pierced Revin’s mind.

“ Tell Omrai to surrender, or she dies.”

Revin tightened his fist.

✦✦✦

Omrai wiped the sweat and dirt from his brow. Thousands of automaton parts lay scattered before him and his army. He smiled. Not a single gravity weapon had worked, no crushed men, no flattened saurians. Just old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat.

His men walked through the destruction, gathering enemy spears and swords. The enemies’ weapons were made of a far stronger metal than their own and pierced the automatons’ armor much better.

One automaton twitched a few feet away, its legs completely torn off. It raised its hand toward Omrai, reaching, still fighting.

A massive foot entered the edge of Omrai’s vision and smashed the automaton into the dirt with a loud crunch. Omrai looked up. Scarback nodded down at him.

Omrai smiled and looked down the hill toward the enemy army.

He wanted to leap forward, to charge forward and smash them. But despite their efforts, the enemy host assembling beyond was still massive. The recent wave would be just the first of many.

How many saurians had Jebuthar slaughtered to make his army?

He looked up. Why hadn’t they landed the command ship yet?

“ Omrai, you have to surrender,” Revin’s voice said, urgent.

Omrai cocked his head, “ Why? What happened?”

“It’s Shifra, Jebuthar’s got her. He says if you don’t surrender, he’ll kill her.”

Omrai’s heart leaped in his chest.

The enemy automatons prepared another strike, and a regiment of skinnier automatons took the front. More human-form automatons. Automatons who had once been men, better fighters than your average gearhead.

“Battle positions!” he shouted back to his men, “Form the line!”

“Omrai! He wants you to stop!”

Omrai looked to his men.

“Halt!” he shouted, “Stop where you stand!”

He turned to his men, they stopped forming into lines. Looking and feeling confused as to why they weren’t moving when the enemy army was preparing an assault.

He turned his thoughts to Revin.

✦✦✦

Revin looked at Shifra, frowning. The baby and juvenile giganotos ignored him and glared at Shifra. They didn’t have the strength to fight against Narazoth’s control, unlike their elders.

“Beastspeaker!” one soldier shouted, sword raised, “Let’s kill them and finish our mission.”

“No!” Revin said, “Scarback and her pack agreed to fight with us for their young, for their future. I can’t lose that! I won’t do that to her.”

“Then you sentence us to die, monk,” one of the soldiers said.

Revin heard a loud humming sound. The soldiers raised their weapons when half a dozen automatons opened a pair of double-wide doors.

In the room beyond was a single automaton creation machine.

“ You can’t make us go in that, be your slaves. Regardless of what I think of the giganotos, we’d fight to the death before letting you change us.”

“Little monk,” Narazoth said, “ I’m not going to transform you .”

One of the baby giganotos leaped forward, heading to the rear of the machine.

“No!” Revin shouted.

It settled itself onto the machine, resting its head within. Face emotionless. The machine activated.

Revin drew his sword. The other young giganotos growled at him.

Suddenly, the giganoto that was on the machine let out a high-pitched wail. The lights and sounds of the machine went as the energy of the machine struck it. Its back end twitched, then fell still.

A newly formed automaton stepped out the front.

Revin gripped his blade.

“ Stop it!” he mindspoke, “Let them go!”

“ Once you’ve learned who’s in charge,” Narazoth said as another baby giganoto jumped forward, “ Then, and only then!”

He heard another wail of pain as the second was transformed.

The two dead baby giganoto bodies lay lifeless on the floor. Revin felt tears on his face, his chin trembling. Tears soaked the bandage over his cheek, causing his stitches to sting.

A third approached the machine.

“No!” Revin shouted, dropping his sword.

It stopped and looked at him.

Revin approached it.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Go ahead and try, I’ve never lost a beast to another monk.”

He knelt, the other baby giganotos growled at him. The poor thing was mere feet away from the conversion machine. He put out his hand. It snapped at him. Revin pulled his hand back.

✦✦✦

Omrai looked out at the enemy army, wanting to charge. His knuckles whitening as he gripped his sword and spear.

Most of his men had gathered on the hill with him, not in battle formations, but to see the army arrayed before them. His men were scared again. He remembered the looks of the dead and dying after that first battle, and how Jebuthar showed them no mercy.

Jebuthar preached a great system, without abuse and without fear. But it was precisely how he conquered. He was brutal. Omrai couldn’t let a man like that have his nation, even if that meant not saving the life of his eldest daughter.

He looked at his men again. They watched him; eyes hopeful. Waiting for orders.

He remembered Shifra as a child. Her eagerness. Her talent. He’d always been so conflicted, seeing her grow in skill in the art of war, yet always pushing her elsewhere. He remembered their hundreds of arguments, all now seen in a new light through Revin’s help. But he could not… would not … sacrifice his nation. He could not be that selfish. So many other families, with fathers and daughters of their own, relied on Omrai’s strength now. He tightened his hands into painful fists.

“Tell Shifra, I’m sorry. If it were my life for hers, I’d give it. But I cannot ask my nation to be the sacrifice.”

His eyes grew full with tears, and he turned to his men and shouted.

“Fire!”

A shout went out, followed by the echoing pops and the smoky haze of burning powder.

✦✦✦

Revin didn’t repeat what Omrai had said. He did his best to ignore it. Omrai making that decision just gave Revin even less time to do what he had to.

Shifra’s jaw was set in a resolute line, but the fear was evident in her trembling as the teeth of a juvenile giganoto neared her. Revin turned back to the baby giganoto, reached out, and touched its snout. He closed his eyes and entered the mental plane.

Its mind was surrounded by a strong net which repelled Revin’s mind. Narazoth’s will. Revin tried to break it, to shove Narazoth’s will away.

He only heard laughing.

“ You cannot wrest control from me. Give up now.”

Revin stopped. He remembered how he had “mastered” Scarback. It wasn’t mastering at all. It wasn’t a battle. It was an understanding.

Revin reached out to the baby giganoto’s mind, reaching a tiny tendril of his will through one of the net’s tiny gaps. “I’m here little one. I’m your friend. I work with your pack; I fight for your life and for your food. Don’t listen to this man, you don’t need him. He only wants to hurt you.”

No response.

“ Come on, little one! Let his net of control fall! You’re not some common animal, you’re a giganoto! A mighty beast of a noble lineage!”

For a moment, nothing happened. The mind made no sign that it had heard him.

The mind wiggled. Bucked. Blades of will leaped from the saurian mind and struck Narazoth’s net of control, slicing away chunks. Revin took advantage of the openings, reached in, and made the connection.

He opened his eyes.

All the baby giganotos were shaking their heads, pushing off Narazoth’s bonds. Revin smiled as they jumped forward, knocking down the automatons.

“ To the Nether with you!” Revin heard in his mind.

One automaton jumped forward, heading for Revin.

Revin reached for the sword at his side only to find it wasn’t there.

He gasped, and before he could react, Beadoróf slammed his blade into the automaton’s face. He stabbed down again and again. Hatred in his eyes.

He turned to Revin, metal gears still dangling from his blade.

“Come on!” he shouted, “Let’s get these liabilities off this ship and finish the mission. There’s a hangar bay close by. Pray there’s a spare ship!”

Revin turned to Shifra.

She jumped forward and embraced him.

“Thank you,” she said, “for coming.”

She looked at him, “Where’s my father?”

“Down below, fighting.”

Revin’s eyes widened. He reached out to Omrai.

“ I’ve got her! Start the attack!”

Revin reached down and connected with the saurians below, readying to coordinate their attack. He held Shifra’s arm for direction and support. His knee was hurting even more now.

✦✦✦

Omrai breathed a sigh of relief at Revin’s news as his men fired another volley on the now charging automatons.

Another row of metal warriors went down. But the human-form automatons had moved behind several lines, using them as cover as they approached.

He looked at the saurians, a few giganotos were close, ready to fight, but the others looked confused, disoriented.

“Revin ! I need saurian backup! ”

Just as he spoke out to Revin, the rest of the saurians got into position, standing at the top of the hill. They honked and roared at the oncoming enemy, then charged.

Omrai smiled as his own men got into formation around the saurians, automaton spears, shields, and swords in their hands.

As one they all charged down the hill into the coming wall of metal.

And shattered it.

✦✦✦

Soldiers and yutaraptors destroyed any man or automaton who got in their way. Revin’s stomach churned each time the yutaraptors tore almerian soldiers apart, splattering the hallways with blood and entrails. Revin tripped on them more than once. He knew those soldiers would do worse if they found him alone, and the raptors enjoyed the fighting immensely. Especially the part where they could get a morsel of squishy, tasty humans.

One of Revin’s raptors tore the head off the last automaton. Its jaw hurt from the strain, but Revin could tell it didn’t mind. In fact, it was ready for more.

They’d made it to the hangar bay and loaded the baby giganotos onto one of the smaller ships. If they could get them out, they would be safe. And he wouldn’t have to worry about them in this fight.

The last few loaded on to the ship.

“You two,” Revin said, pointing to some soldiers, “And you,” he pointed to the pilot, “I want you to fly these as far away from the battle as you possibly can. Fly under this ship and head north.”

“And what are we going to do?” another soldier said.

“We’re taking out Narazoth,” Revin said, looking at Beadoróf.

The soldiers and the pilot nodded and climbed onto the ship.

Revin looked at Shifra.

“I need you to go too,” Revin said.

Shifra shook her head. “No, I’m staying.”

She grabbed a sword and a gun from a fallen soldier.

She looked back at Revin. “Jebuthar is a monster, and I’m not getting shipped off while you deal with him.”

Revin nodded. “This is a bad idea.”

“It isn’t your decision,” Shifra said, her face pressed into a snarl of rage. “So, we can either waste our time chatting, or get to work taking down this bastard.”

✦✦✦

After the small ship flew off, Revin turned to Beadoróf. “Since the gravitonium is no longer an option, what are we going to do about landing this thing?”

“I don’t know,” Beadoróf said, “We’ll have to free the monks and take Narazoth down ourselves.”

Beadoróf closed his eyes. Reaching out. He nodded and opened them. “The monks are that way.” He pointed down a hallway.

Tentatively, Revin reached out, searching for any sign of his father. He felt none. His father might be unconscious. He reached out for his mother and felt nothing there too.

“Revin , why are you doing this? He’ll kill all of you. Surrender, this is what must be.”

For the first time since Narazoth had spoken to him, Revin could sense the direction of the mind. He was close enough.

“Wait a second!” Revin shouted.

The men were quiet. “I… I have Narazoth’s location.”

Revin looked to the right.

“We split up,” Shifra said, “We’ll take a few raptors, the rest of you get the other monks and the core.”

Beadoróf nodded.

“That’s a good a plan as any.” Beadoróf turned to the soldiers. “With me!”