The Medida War Read online

  "Well, kiss my chutteys!" said the major.

  Hammerstein's mangled remains stiffly activated toward his comrade. "Mek-Quake! What... kept you?" he said in a distorted voice, his power cells drained and almost empty.

  During their apparent defeat, the Warriors had been mind-comming with each other on a low-frequency, secret channel. It was not that they had been playing possum; their injuries were every bit as devastating and terminal as they seemed. But they had always had a final card up their sleeves themselves - Mek-Quake. Only when they wanted to play him, he was nowhere to be found.

  Mek-Quake gunned his killdozer toward the ruined carcass of Hammerstein. As he did so, he rolled over wounded soldiers that lay on the battlefield. He continued to keep the vertical soldiers at bay as he jettisoned six metal crates with the ABC insignia adorned on them. "Sorry about delay. Humans tried to mow Mek-Quake down!"

  "Yeah, a likely story."

  "Okay, how about this? Mek-Quake tried to avoid these humans or they tried to avoid Mek-Quake. It's all a bit of a - hrrrgh - Red haze now. But I had to change my tracks. Human remains not good for them!"

  "Just bring us our spare bodies."

  Hammerstein activated a signal within his memory, making the neural link with a replica of himself.

  One of the crates broke open. A familiar but gleaming new hammer smashed out. More of the pristine mint-condition Hammerstein emerged. Polished and shiny as the day he was assembled. The eyes in the old Hammerstein glowed with power. The new Hammerstein opened fire on the Biohazard troopers who were also kept at a distance by Mek-Quake's tank barrage.

  Hammerstein's new body marched over to the old one. The old one said, "Remove my brain and insert it in your cranial cavity." The new model obeyed. Hammerstein's consciousness was now fully activated in his new body.

  Meanwhile, in a move that they had rehearsed many times, the other crates also ruptured apart. Duplicates of Joe, Blackblood, Mongrol and Deadlock, acting on the orders of the originals, broke out. They, too, marched over to their old bodies, removed their brains and inserted them in their new bodies. Joe brushed the specks of dust that had already started to sully his doppelgänger. Deadlock, Blackblood and Mongrol all seemed to be stretching their limbs as power surged through their new armour.

  Deadlock's bike was also ready to be unloaded from Mek-Quake. Its wheels could be quickly converted into two lethal semi-circular chainsaws. But he decided not to use the bike for his nourishment on this occasion. His Ace of Swords was thirsting for blood.

  Only one crate was not in use - Morrigun's. No signal was being sent from her crushed and mangled remains to activate her Mark Two.

  "All right, let's mop up," commanded Hammerstein.

  The major stood facing the ABC Warriors by his T-Ten which he'd hastily recalled. "Ain't you supposed to be dead? What's with the new threads?" He shook his head slowly. "So I gotta get wicked on your be-hinds again? You boys just don't learn too good!"

  "Oh, we learn fast, major," said Blackblood with a sinister smile. The Warriors moved menacingly forward.

  "T-Ten, I would be mighty grateful if you would give those boys some soul loving."

  T-Ten delivered a salvo and Hammerstein and Mongrol were hit by the same atomising shell as before. Only this time it had no discernible effect.

  Blackblood and Deadlock were sprayed by the liquefier, but that had no effect on them either.

  The same went for Joe and the metal-eating bacteria bullets.

  Zilch.

  "You see, major," Hammerstein pronounced. "Our brains are equipped with a self-learning program, that modifies our molecular infrastructure to withstand new atomic, bacteria and chemical warfare threats."

  "State of the art nanobots," said Blackblood with a discreet sideways leer at Joe.

  As Blackblood did this, a sharp-eyed observer would have noticed Joe shudder slightly. Because Joe had a thing about nanobots.

  Perhaps it was their microscopic size that worried him. Knowing he could never use his sniper skills to defeat them. He also worried that despite all the fail-safe devices he had in place, somehow the nanobots would find a way to get past them and eat him alive; turning him into grey goo. The way they did with disposable washing machines. Sometimes, when he was in stand-by mode, he'd have nightmares about the nanobots swarming all over him, eating his metal flesh.

  It was like one of those Freudian fears or fantasies that humans have. Just as boys worry about their mothers, and girls their fathers, so robots tend to worry about their nan.

  Recently Blackblood had discovered Joe's hang-up. In the past he had been able to wind Joe up about his habit of wearing somewhat exotic clothing. But that stopped when Joe finally got the photos back. Now he had something else to wind Joe up about and would often point out, "See that grey sludge over there, Joe? That looks like the work of the nanobots to me." Or "Your face is looking a bit grey today, Joe. I think you could have a bit of nanobot trouble there. A good robot friend of mine had the same kind of look, and he was dead within hours. Eaten alive by the nanobots. Turned into this horrible grey goo."

  Joe knew Blackblood was making up the stories. For one thing, Blackblood didn't have any friends. But it still fed his fears and one day, he finally cracked and gave Blackblood such a beating, he never brought up the subject of nanobots again.

  But the nanobots and their molecular modifications had done their job. The Warriors were once again invincible.

  "Go massive!" said Hammerstein.

  "Let's finish off the floppies," said Blackblood.

  "Oh, frag!" cursed the major and signalled a rapid retreat. Mongrol finally vented his rage on the T-Ten. He didn't exactly tie a knot in the tank barrel, but he came fairly close. He didn't rip off its turret this time, he just upended it, so he could get at the underneath. Then he blasted his way in and disposed of the crew.

  Deadlock hacked and sliced his way through the soldiers with preternatural ease. Blackblood machine-gunned fleeing troopers, making vid notes of the terrified expressions on their faces which he would watch at home later. Joe took out those soldiers his comrades missed, enjoying putting his new body through its paces.

  Hammerstein dealt with the major. One hammer blow was enough to send him to oblivion. As he lay there dying, Hammerstein scowled down at him. "You down with that, major? Are we badass dudes? Do you like our alphabet? Did we doh, reh, me your full metal ass?"

  Deadlock and Mongrol gazed silently down at the remains of Morrigun. "She no longer resides in that shell, Mongrol. Khaos has guided her to a place of eternal peace."

  Joe placed a comradely hand upon Mongrol's shoulder, "Sorry, man."

  Mek-Quake nodded his agreement. "Yeah. Mek-Quake is sorry, too. Man."

  "She meant a lot to all of us," added Hammerstein.

  "Don't include me in your condolences, Hammerstein. I feel no sense of loss," said Blackblood. "After all, she rejected all my friendly advances. And don't waste your sympathy on Mongrol either. He's a mindless simpleton. A beast. He doesn't understand the meaning of death. He has no idea she is really dead. He'll probably be waiting for her at the door every day, like a dog, hoping she'll return. Now that, I find really moving."

  "An intriguing hypothesis, Blackblood," said Mongrol. "I will discuss the implications of Morrigun's demise with you all presently." His comrades looked at him in astonishment. "Mongrol? What's happened to you?"

  "You're like a completely different robot."

  "Indeed. I have become the robot commander I was before I crash-landed to be rebuilt by Lara. The shock of Morrigun's death seems to be responsible for my mekamorphosis."

  His comrades were dumb-founded by his new-found articulation. Finally Mongrol turned to them, "Come on. Let us bury our comrade. Then it's time to move on. We've got a planet to clean up."

  This was the kind of thing Hammerstein would normally say. The kind of thing Mongrol said normally had the word "Smush!" in it.

  Later, as he looked down on her grave they
heard him murmur, "Goodbye, princess."

  After a simple ceremony, Hammerstein had a private word with him. "Mongrol, are you okay?"

  "Yes, of course I am, soldier. These things happen in war and we must deal with them as best we can. Stiff upper lip, that sort of thing."

  Mongrol's upper lip was particularly stiff.

  "It's just, well, I know you and Morrigun were pretty close, so I guess her death must have hit you pretty hard. If there's anything I can do."

  "Nothing, thank you, sergeant. For now, all I require is solitude, so if you will excuse me..."

  He left behind a headstone on which he had lasered a simple message.

  Morrigun

  A Princess of Mars

  ABC

  Her spirit had rejoined her beloved Maras. She was riding again with the night mares in the great forest of Menark.

  Later, the Warriors headed out into the desert in the killdozer. Hammerstein addressed the trimorphs who had fled there from the ghetto. "You're no longer safe in Marineris. There's less discrimination against Martian life forms in Viking City or in Tripolis. Or find a home in the desert for yourselves, until we've taught the humans there's only one law for all."

  "You see, Trigon," said Tricorn. "Trinity was right. Mit said seven robots would rescue us."

  "Yes, dear," said Trigon. And then he added sadly, "And one of them gave her life to protect Mit."

  "May Medusa protect you, ABC Warriors," said Trinity.

  They held each other close, reciting, "Three in one. One in three."

  The killdozer disappeared into the desert, where the sea of sand slashed the red sky in a crude and uneven line. The redness bled into the full flush of day. Its light swept down into the steel girders of Bowel Town. There, high in the branches, was a horned steel figure. It held a hammer in its hands. The creature threw its head back in ululation, a cry of fierce joy and triumph. Then it gazed to the horizon.

  "Yes, may Medusa protect you, ABC Warriors," the figure said.

  ELEVEN

  Three months passed.

  During that time, the ABC Warriors proved they were neither for humans nor for Medusa. They were on Mars for the same reason they first came to the Red Planet. To increase the peace.

  They dealt with the Jung Cannibals from the Road Kill Kafe, destroying the zombies Medusa had brought back from the dead. They made the Trans-Martian highway safe once again. Pensioner Pie and Road Rash Risotto were no longer on the menu.

  Drawing on the humans' collective subconcious, Medusa tried cloning humans from her biomass. She created crude copies of humans and used them to destroy remote townships.

  Some clones were cruder than others, like the mysterious stranger who rode into the Western-style town of Redemption one day. The mean-looking cowboy rode up to the saloon and prepared to dismount.

  Apparently, Medusa had not realised that the horse and rider were actually two separate creatures. So he was unable to get off his horse because they were one biomass.

  Fortunately, he had his trusty chainsaw with him, so he cut himself off his mount. He then became known as "The Man With No Legs." But anyone who made jokes about him would quickly regret it. He aimed low and he aimed mean.

  Other Clone Cowboys followed and Medusa seemed equally confused about them - and what a cowboy should actually look like. Perhaps because her source, the human subconscious, was a place of dreams, of visual symbols, of selective memories of famous books and films, rather than an encyclopaedic data base. Or maybe it was just a malevolent streak in her.

  There was the Centaur Cowboy, who had a horse's body, and a human head and arms. When he entered the saloon, no one made any jokes about, "Do you want your oats?"

  And the Clone Ranger, a cherokee who rode a horse with a masked face. Leading, inevitably, to calls of, "Who was that masked horse?"

  A third clone was a horse with the cowboy hidden in its stomach, his rifle pointing out between the horse's teeth. He was known as a Man Called Horse.

  This gang of monstrosities terrorised and killed many of the townfolk of Redemption before the ABC Warriors arrived and destroyed them.

  The press finally began to acknowledge the peacekeeping role of the robots and changed their earlier critical opinion. The Evening Moons had begun by reporting "MITEORS HIT MARINERIS," misspelling "meteor" to emphasise the involvement of the trimorphs in Medusa's crimes. It had a detailed report of how the Warriors had killed the heroic Biohazard Troopers and helped the evil trimorphs escape.

  "ABC WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION" complained the Daily Thought.

  "MARS BARMY" said the Morning Angel. "The ABC Warriors are the enemies of every human on Mars."

  Later, though, the influential News Orbit did a pro-Warriors piece under the headline, "SEEING RED. An exclusive interview with Hammerstein, leader of the ABC Warriors."

  The authoritative Planet followed with "THE WIZARD OF MARS. An exclusive interview with Deadlock, leader of the ABC Warriors." He talked about the need to find a "happy medium" between the Martian and human ways of life.

  Even Country Domes did a feature: "At Home with A KNIGHT OF THE RED PLANET. Mongrol, leader of the ABC Warriors, relaxes in his biol Bunkhouse and gives us an exclusive interview."

  All three robots explained the views of trimorph mediums like Trinity: balance and harmony, unity in diversity.

  No one was interested in Mek-Quake's views and Blackblood never gave interviews in case anyone recognised him. And Joe was far too cool for that sort of thing. Although that did not stop an article appearing in the Planetary Enquirer that claimed: "I'm carrying Joe Pineapples' love child" by a barmaid falsely claiming to have had a relationship with him.

  The ABC Warriors needed to win hearts and minds. They had to find the "mittle" way, keeping a balance between humans and Martians. Both President Cobb and Senator Diaz had refused to meet with them to discuss the Medusa crisis. They wanted to gauge public opinion before deciding whether they were for or against the Warriors. So the robots continued their peace mission without official licence.

  Mongrol, Mek-Quake and Blackblood were currently dealing with further clone attacks in Desolation Gulch and Barren City. Since Mongrol had recovered his mental faculties, he had proved a resourceful and intelligent commander. But this had led to clashes with Hammerstein, who normally took operational command. This was also despite the fact that Deadlock also regarded himself as the leader of the Warriors, although he was far too khaotic to be bothered with day-to-day affairs.

  Consequently, by tacit agreement, Hammerstein and Mongrol kept out of each other's way whenever possible and this was one reason why they had split into two groups. Although Mek-Quake and Blackblood also preferred Mongrol the way he used to be - a Frankenstein's monster, capable of saying little more than "Mongrol smush!" - Mek-Quake resented Mongrol for no longer being stupid, like him. And Blackblood resented the fact that Mongrol was no longer stuck in time the way he was and had moved on in his life.

  All the ABC Warriors were missing Morrigun.

  Hammerstein for the way she'd rebuke him for his apparently "sexist" speech patterns in combat, like "Let's shaft them" and "Cover me, I'm going in."

  Blackblood had always wanted to discover Morrigun's dark secrets from her time on the planet of the Maras, but now he never would.

  Joe Pineapples would never be able to share Mek-Quake jokes with her again. And Mek-Quake would never be able to share Joe Pineapples jokes with her again. These were about Joe's exaggerated sniper skills and Mek-Quake didn't really understand them. But he knew when to laugh in the right places. Sometimes.

  Deadlock missed the sister with whom he could discuss his occult spells, without irritating interruptions and requests for rational and scientific explanations.

  Mongrol... Mongrol just missed her.

  They had discussed replacing her. It was necessary to have seven Warriors for mystic reasons, according to Deadlock. So they interviewed a number of applicants.

  Many of these robo
ts were highly opinionated and knew all about the ABC Warriors from the legends. In fact they knew more about the Warriors than the Warriors did themselves. Some interviewees even criticised their approach to the Medusa problem.

  It soon became clear that a lot of the applicants were just looking to make money or see their names in lights as the saviours of Mars. When it was explained that the Warriors didn't pay wages, that the job of keeping the peace itself was its own reward, and that fame wasn't the name of the ABCs game, many withdrew their applications.

  One applicant did seem ideally suited. An automaton-class storm trooper whose references were impeccable. He had served with distinction in several campaigns. He was armed with state of the art weaponry. He had infra-red, infra-blue and infra-green vision.

  The problem was he was too perfect. Apart from upgrading his weaponry every six months, when the Invention Exchange released new weapons onto the market, he spent the rest of his time standing in a cupboard in stand-by mode.

  "Don't you have a life?" asked Joe.

  "I'm proud to say I don't, Mr Pineapples. My motto is: If you don't live, you can't die."

  "Any friends?" enquired Hammerstein.

  "It's better not to have friends. That way there is no risk of falling out with them."

  "Any pets?"

  "When pets die, it can be very upsetting. So I cleverly avoid this by not having any."

  "Any hobbies?"

  "My hobbies are polishing, loading and stripping down my gun. I particularly like working with children and animals for whom I have special flesh-rending facilities."

  "Well, thank you for coming. We still have some more applicants to see. We'll be in touch."

  "Thank you very much."

  "And enjoy yourself in that broom cupboard."

  After his interview the Warriors appreciated each others' bizarre characters a little more. Yet they knew they must ultimately find a replacement for Morrigun.