JUKA SERIAL
Part 4: Exodus

IV.

Kumar sprang across the machinery of the catacombs, carrying Darhim like a backpack. Tentative flashes of white from somewhere up ahead lit the humid darkness. With no other clues to guide them, they hurried in that direction. .

When they rounded a tight corner the quality of the atmosphere changed. It was still hot to the lungs and flesh, but it moved now as if circulating through an extremely large space. Crackles of sporadic light emerged from beneath a broad tangle of huge gears and panels on the floor. The ghostly brilliance revealed a gigantic mechanical cavern. The chamber was large enough to house several airships. The walls surged with movement, every inch jammed with gears and pipes and chains and pumps, squirming as if infested with parasites. The air fluttered with ceaseless clanks and buzzing whispers like panes of vibrating glass.

In the flickering light the rebels immediately recognized what they saw. It was a congress of Overlords, in quantities to surpass their foulest nightmares.

Much of the movement on the cavern walls issued from disjointed organic masses. Though pools and streaks of shadow blackened the majority of the chamber, glimpses suggested the repellent whole: Tissues wriggled through heavy glass ducts; bags of flesh crawled amorphously within cages; many machine parts were fashioned from living bone or tendon; and eyes stared at them, always a million stark, bodiless eyes, swimming and swirling in freakish schools through a warren of translucent pipes.

The subtle, pervasive sluicing noises brought bile into Kumar's throat. He had never grown accustomed to the presence of Overlords, nor had he any desire to do so. He swallowed hard, then noticed a shape in the ceiling that stood out from the rest. When a prolonged glare swept across the center of the room, he ground his teeth.

An enormous mechanical claw distended from the roof of the cavern. In its grip was a glassy cylinder, capped at the top and bottom by armor-encased machinery. Within the cylinder undulated a faintly glowing fluid or gas. A shape resolved inside. It was a torso, or the remnants of one. Glass and copper components riddled it like a disease; or perhaps the living body was a rash upon the machine. It had a head, invaded by pipes and tubing. The organic creature this once had been was bloated and oversized, twice that of any Juka, though Kumar guessed the thing had never breathed with Jukan lungs. It was a monstrosity from an elder race.

There was something different about this Overlord. Ancient. Primal.

In the corridor where they were trapped, the rebels had battled the horrible mouthpiece of the Prime Overlord. Now, Kumar knew, they faced the being itself.

Kumar sucked on a trembling breath and growled, "Darhim, fire now."

The priest had climbed off the warrior's back. He flicked up the tip of his static scourge, aimed it at the weakly luminescent cylinder and cocked forward the trigger. A bolt of lightning shrieked into the air, dashing against the Prime Overlord in a blast of smoke and thunder. The assembled Overlords flurried over the cavern walls like caged birds.

Through the haze, the rebels saw that the surfaces of the Prime Overlord were unscathed.

The torso moved very slightly. A fiery voice rose behind them: <<Submit to immortality and join your companions. I do not desire to damage your corporal integrity.>>

Kumar whirled around. Blocking the passage from which they came, half cloaked in the flashing gloom, the jaws of the Prime Overlord rested on spidery legs that were not its own. The massive machine looked undamaged. It must have been a second, identical device. Its bellows flapped with healthy vigor.

Behind it were bulky silhouettes, four of them. By now the rebels recognized Juggernauts even under a mantle of darkness.

Beside Kumar, Darhim's rich voice murmured low. "I'll try to distract them. Escape, my friend."

"Forget it. You're not equipped to handle this."

"I still have a trick or two left. Live and lead, Kumar. Dying's for the old."

"Besides me you're probably the youngest one here," grumbled Kumar, "so shut up and get ready to move." He pointed at the grotesque torso hanging from the ceiling. "You! What's happened to Narah?!"

<<The organism with that identity has been grafted.>>

Kumar's body surged with an icy chill. His eyes swelled red. "Then bid farewell to your immortality, you spineless, caged barbarian!" He twirled with a swift motion and flung one short sword into the mouthpiece of the Prime Overlord. The blade crashed through nozzle mechanisms and released a tide of flame from the device's maw. The Juggernauts scuttled around it on numerous thick, spiky legs; but when they entered the cavern Kumar was already carrying Darhim towards the center of the room. The two rebels passed over struts in the machinery from which the furtive light flashed.

The floor began to rumble.

Kumar paused to glance back at his pursuers. The Juggernauts had stopped several yards away. They even backed up a bit, shying from the source of the bright, flickering lights that splashed the Juka from underneath.

The warrior realized the ground was moving. Giant gears were peeling back layers of steel panels underfoot. Kumar jumped from surface to surface, balancing the old priest on his back, endeavoring to find some purchase that was not moving. When he finally lit on a stable beam of metal, he glanced around at his perch.

In the course of invading five citadels, Kumar had seen many extremes of Overlord technology. It did not prepare him for the sight of the thing he was standing upon, rising with deliberate grandeur from the floor.

Heat and steam exuded from it in a tremulous miasma. Its hill-sized bulk heaved what sounded like solemn breaths through unfathomable lungs. It whispered in a thousand voices.

The device was huge. It nearly filled the breadth of the vast floor and continued down to unknown depths. Most of it appeared to be a massive, tangled network of thick glass pipes and globes, supported by a coppery scaffold; though its fleeting, inscrutable internal movements suggested unguessed layers of complexity. It flashed and glowed in a thousand places, in the cadence of a distant thunderstorm. Darkness trickled throughout its workings. Its countenance was furtive, mysterious.

Kumar felt the uneasy sensation that this device was more alive than the Overlords could ever aspire to be.

The crystal maze surged with breathy phantoms of steam. In some globes the mist condensed into bubbling liquids. In others it made strips of silver metal glow, then pop with a flash of static charge. Valves snapped open and closed with electric crackles. Turquoise flames heated liquids of many colors inside copper-bottomed spheres, adding to the endless, rasping circulation of steam. The activity extended deep into the device's interior.

Despite its chaotic appearance, it hissed and sighed with a disquieting rhythm. There was an organization about it. Flames rose and fell according to some enigmatic formula. It bubbled numbers and spells.

The Juggernauts maintained a respectful distance from the pulsing, living alchemical artifice. The scorched mouthpiece of the Prime Overlord stood in the glittering strobes of the device.

<<Behold Exodus,>> it said.

In that moment it occurred to Kumar that he should have accepted Darhim's offer of escape. The wrinkled old priest always had been the wisest of the group.

When it began to topple over its long, thin legs, the loyalist Behemoth emitted a dolorous moan from tons of buckling steel. The plains quaked when it smashed down. Waves rippled out from its impact, tossing soldiers into the air.

"That's two!" howled Turlogan after a gruff cheer. Kneeling behind him, Obden worked their Behemoth's legs. Both glued their eyes to copper viewing pipes.

The trap door across the room clanked open. "We're losing ground down here!" shouted Jamark from below. "We can barely keep the Dreadnoughts from tearing off the bay door!"

"Get your men out!" bellowed Turlogan. "It's useless to stay! You can't help with this."

"May the Great Mother glorify you," said Obden.

Jamark furrowed his brow. "You two need divine protection, not me. I can get my troops past the Dreadnoughts in gyrofoils, but those monsters are going to get to you soon enough!"

Turlogan broadened his grin. "Then make sure our songs are sung loudly!"

Jamark blinked, smiled, and vanished from the trap door.

"You were right," grinned the pit fighter. "This is a beautiful machine, Obden."

The engineer wagged her head to shake loose her hair. It rippled over her shoulders in grey waves. She wiped the sweat from her brow. Her face glowed with excitement.

"What do you say, Turlogan? Let's show them what slaves can do when the yoke is off!"

Kumar and Darhim climbed toward the center of the bizarre, hissing, hill-shaped device called Exodus. Steam of varying colors raced through its glass tubes, boiling out of alchemical mixtures and billowing through valves that sparked and crackled. At the peak of the device's bulk was a soft orange glow. It was a virgin glass bubble, blown from the end of a long, narrow tube. It cooled into place at the nexus of half a dozen glass pipes. When the gentle glow faded away, steam tumbled up the pipes and flooded the globe with a whorl of pale colors.

After another look they realized that glass components were being created all about the exterior of Exodus. The device glowed with beads and stalks like a machine's surreal jewelry. It had extended its height by several feet in only a few minutes.

"It calculates," said Darhim, scanning the device's staggering complexity. To the torso on the ceiling he shouted, "This is an alchemical factory, isn't it? It's making something!"

The Overlord's booming reply sounded almost proud. <<It has completed the calculations to open a tunnel to our new home. It now proceeds with designs to fashion an architecture for us.>>

Darhim squinted. "You can't tunnel out of a floating city!"

<<The nature of our Exodus is beyond your fathoming. Know only that the place we go has all the resources of a young world. Exodus will perform the functions for which we have thus far relied upon slaves.>>

Kumar sneered. "This thing must pretend to be as smart as a man."

<<Far more so. Exodus surpasses even Overlord capacity. It is the pinnacle of creation. It is the ultimate being.>>

"That doesn't give me comfort," muttered Kumar.

"The Juggernauts don't attack," noted the priest in a low voice. "Neither do the jaws. They're afraid of damaging this thing. They're stalling."

Kumar chewed his lip. "Noticed that too, did you? All this glass looks very fragile. It's practically an invitation. There's only one thing that keeps me from smashing it to pieces."

Darhim nodded. "It's supposed to take the Overlords away from here."

"But I daresay they've got more to lose than we do." The warrior whisked out his last remaining short sword and held it over his head. "Listen to me! All I want from you is the return of my soldiers! Give them back and there's no need for me to crack this bauble of yours! You can tunnel your way to wherever your bloated, grisly heart wants to crawl. We'll call this whole war a draw. I'm willing to swallow my pride."

<<The weapon you hold cannot threaten Exodus. It has grown for a decade. Its size precludes termination. Your interference is therefore insignificant. However, your request conforms to my timetable. Your soldiers return.>>

Abruptly the workings of Exodus accelerated. Gas clouds streamed wildly through the webs of glass. The whispers became bubbling murmurs. Flames fingered higher and brighter.

<<It has begun. Attend Exodus, my slaves.>>

Squalls of spasmodic light barraged them from a thousand strobing arcs. The voices of Exodus transformed into wails. The cavern shuddered with the deafening sounds, tinged by the hyperactive buzzing of excited Overlords.

From the dazzling gloom appeared two silhouettes. They were Juka, as much as Kumar could discern, though something was wrong about them. They stumbled over the irregular surface of Exodus, toward him and Darhim.

When the two men were close enough to distinguish details, Kumar and Darhim grimaced. They were indeed rebel soldiers, the ones who were carried away to be transformed. The process seemed well under way. Both had torsos perforated by tubes and pipes. These extended like tentacles away from their bodies and into the mechanical darkness. One soldier had an additional pipe jammed into the roof of his mouth. His entire lower jaw had been removed.

The jawless soldier brandished a huge steel claw where his left hand had been. The other raised a longsword to attack.

"Bastard!" howled Kumar at the Prime Overlord. He leapt between Darhim and the automatons and parried their simultaneous lunges. In a furious pattern of clanging strokes he drove both of them back, then severed their thrumming pipelines. He finished each of them by plunging his short sword into their tough hearts. Through his blade he felt the metal tubes that invaded their body cavities.

"Barbarian," growled the warrior, catching his hot breath. He glowered at the Prime Overlord, looming grotesquely over the proceedings. "You perverse savage! Why do you use men like mindless weapons? Why?!"

Nearby, Darhim knelt over his own sword. He was shuffling several vials in his hands. When he glanced up his eyes widened. "Kumar, behind you..."

The warrior mashed shut his eyes. "Please, Great Mother hear me. Please tell me it isn't she..."

He turned and looked. Another shape picked its way across the pulsating topography of Exodus. Her transformation was less progressed than her companions, though several pipes had been jammed into her ribcage. She held a longsword in her hand. Amid the blinding chaos of lights and molten glass, ebony shadows splashed her face like slick paint. Her eyes pulled open wide. They bulged with vivid horror.

Narah struggled for a moment, convulsing, as if fighting the effects of this new enslavement. But something was battling for her will and she was clearly losing. Finally she stood at her full height, glared at her erstwhile companions and attacked. Kumar howled an anguished scream and parried her skillful blows.

Behind them Exodus erupted into unearthly squeals. Smoke and steam flooded in sheets from the device's interior. Up from the dark, flashing hulk thrust many thick, metal stalks -- ten long rods, tipped with knifelike fangs. Thirty feet above the floor the rods punctured the very substance of the air itself. Then they began to part, peeling a ragged hole into empty space. Beyond was an impossibly rich blackness.

<<Exodus digs our tunnel to the past,>> boomed the voice of the Prime Overlord. <<Now begins the final harvest of fuel.>> The collected Overlords buzzed and clacked with excitement.

Everything began to shake.

On the storm-darkened plains outside, masses of soldiers retreated from the space where the Behemoths battled. Lightning whipped the combatants. Two of the colossal machines bore down upon a lone third. The legs of the rebel war machine were slightly curved and twisted, as if the steel had performed actions for which it was not designed.

Yet the rebel machine displayed a battery of maneuvers unknown for automatons. Currently its upraised neck was crossed with that of an enemy. Steel beams trumpeted their contest of strength. The lone machine shivered, weakened by its bent legs; but before it became unstable its neck swerved to the side.

The loyalist Behemoth lurched forward, unbalanced. The rebel swept its neck into its enemy's rear legs. The move was ponderous but quick enough to trip the automaton. After many tense moments, the loyalist Behemoth fell forward. It slammed the ground close to a refugee column. The impact rippled the earth like water.

The surviving loyalist Behemoth punctured the body of the rebel machine. Its gigantic muzzle smashed through the proportionately small section, dislodging huge steel tatters and a leaping cloud of levitant. The devastated Behemoth swayed. At that moment a gnatlike cluster of flying objects soared into the wound.

Inside Turlogan bellowed with rage. His kinetic maul whipped through the air and crashed against the steel chassis of several invading Dreadnoughts. Though each automaton approximated a flying Juggernaut, the raw fury of the pit fighter's attack engaged four of them at once. No more than that could sweep through the gaping, ragged hole in the ceiling of the Behemoth's central room.

"Obden!" howled the giant Juka. "Fall against it! Do it now!"

A bladed claw tore through Turlogan's thigh. Gore sprayed the air and he roared with pain. A backstroke of his kinetic maul bashed the Dreadnought's partially exposed face. Against the odds the automaton's skull cracked. The creature clanged to the floor, floundering mechanical arms.

A few feet away from it Obden's face was tight with agony. Her abdomen spilled a heavy stream of blood from many brutal gashes. Turlogan's abilities were transcendent but he could not parry every attack. Nor did Obden possess his stamina.

Yet she bit back her pain enough to reach for a control rod. The room had begun to sway as the impaled, undirected war machine lost its balance. The engineer had no intention of losing like this. Not when the very weight of this Behemoth was the most potent weapon on the battlefield.

She calculated a difficult maneuver, then twisted the control rod with the last scraps of strength she could muster.

The armies watched while the rebel machine teetered beside the central anchor of the citadel. When it rocked precariously to the side, one leg raised up high, braced against the cluster of vertical pipes and pushed off. Some of the pipelines burst, raining barrels and alchemical liquids onto the battlefield.

The rebel Behemoth shoved itself in the direction of its final opponent. Its neck chopped into the axis of its enemy's body. Both giants bent.

The violence of the maneuver shoved the Dreadnoughts against the twisted roof of the chamber. The room pitched completely onto its side. In that welcome instant Turlogan caught his breath. Wounds and broken bones sang torment through his body. His head swam from blood loss. One of his legs was a catastrophe.

He caught sight of Obden clinging to the control rod, hanging from it. Though the rest of her body was rags, her eyes still blazed with fire. In that moment of pain it occurred to Turlogan how beautiful she had always been. Beautiful like a work of master craftsmanship.

Another claw snapped around his waist, scissoring through flesh and organs. But the pit fighter grinned, flayed himself from the Dreadnought's grasp and reached for the control rod to the Behemoth's neck. He shoved it with all of his strength. The room spun again and as the Dreadnoughts lanced him with half a dozen whirling, grinding blades, Turlogan bellowed out his own name, like a peal of thunder in the ageless tempest of battle.

In its final act the rebel machine bucked its ruined neck forward. Tilted by the maneuver, the loyalist Behemoth toppled in the direction of the central anchor. Its muzzle plunged into a huge trough in the ground, with a titanic roar that was mirrored by a rumble under the earth. Black smoke billowed out of cracks in the demolished pavement.

Barrels and liquids ceased to fountain from the ruptured pipes. The pumps ground to a stop. After a pause the rebel troops sent up a rain-soaked cheer.

DISCLAIMER: The prequel fiction contained on this site is copyright Electronic Arts and Origin and is used here for entertainment purposes only. 

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