and delegating command style to hide his own fear.
That did not bode well for the integrity of their mission.
“So much for command by political appointee,” Ricia’s voice said over their private link channel.
“Are you as worried as I am?” Ramsey asked her. “He hasn’t been outside of his own orbit since the Dragons launched.”
“More worried, I think. He was telling me earlier that he shouldn’t even be here, that his personal AI could’ve handled all of this in proxy. Something has him worried, and it’s not just the Ahannu.”
“The mission itself, maybe,” Ramsey suggested. “There’s a lot of political capital riding on this, including the possibility of war back home if we fail here.”
“Well, he’d better get his act together, or we’re all in deep shit,” Anderson replied. “Uh-oh. Heads up. Dragon Seven is coming over Krakatoa’s horizon.”
Ramsey wrenched his attention back to his noumenon. The attack plan had called for all of the Dragons to enter Krakatoa’s line-of-sight more or less simultaneously in completely different directions, but vagaries of wind, reentry orientation, and navigation could not be predicted with perfect accuracy, and as expected, there’d been some scattering. Dragon Four had approached from the west. Seven was coming into the mountain’s line of fire now from the north; Dragon Three would enter it from the southeast in another thirty seconds.
And the seconds continued to flutter past without an outward response from Krakatoa. Good … good! Maybe there was a delay in recharge for that damned thing. If so, they could use it to good advantage by—
Sensors in the Dragonfly landers, the reconnaissance satellites over Ishtar, and on board the Derna all picked up the sudden build and surge of an immense magnetic field pinpointed deep beneath the mountain. A surge of radiation—of fusion-hot plasma—and an instant later the blue star marking Dragonfly Seven flared and winked out. Another LM, another twenty-five Marines, gone. Twenty-five percent of the assault force lost already, and the first lander hadn’t even touched down yet.
This was going to be rough. …
Chamber of Warrior Preparation
Deeps of An-Kur
Third Period of Dawn
He felt the mountain shudder and made the gesture of gizkim-nam, the Sign of Destiny, a warning to the universe not to mismanage the affairs of the Dingir. The Enemy was upon them. The only question was which Enemy it was.
His name was Tu-Kur-La, and he was dingir-gubidir-min, a god-warrior of the second rank, of the house of In-Kur-Dru and a Keeper of the Memories. The particular memory lineage he bore was no less than that of the House of Nin-Ur-Tah herself, and so he remembered the Sag-ura of Kia, remembered the Ahannu colony there and the creation of the Sag-ura, the Blackhead slaves of that world.
Yes, he remembered. …
All around him other Ahannu god-warriors were gathering, awakened from the Sleep of Ages to once again defend the sacred vales and mountains of Enduru. Drones and males born for their purpose, they filed into the Chamber of Weapons, taking down the lesser anenkara from the racks along the bare stone walls. There were too few of the ancient devices for even one in twelve to carry one; most god-warriors, the drones who could no longer breed, would carry mitul, curved chakhul and thrusting shukur, and blunt-tipped tukul, primitive weapons, though effective when deployed in large numbers. And the Sag-ura gudibir, of course, had weapons of their own.
He ran a slender, six-fingered hand along the elegantly graven barrel of his anenkara. God-weapons. Weapons forged by the gods-who-came-before, forged and stored here in the depths of Enduru against the coming of the Hunters of the Dawn.
Yes. He remembered …
The colony cities on the fair, blue world of Kia, like vast, stone flowers unfolded in the sun, remembered especially the great capital of Eridu at the confluence of the two rivers, Buranun and fast-flowing Idigna.
He remembered the skies darkened by the Hunters when they came, remembered the battle over desolate Kingu, Kia’s solitary moon, Defender of Kia. At that time, of course, “he” was a she, a biotechnician named Lul-Ka-Tah, storing memories of the conflict for transmission back to Anu.
And he remembered the time of sadness that followed, remembered the chunk of rock, like a burning mountain, plunging out of space into the Greater Sea south of Eridu. The Hunters of the Dawn had judged the Gods of An and determined to scour them from existence.
And not just on Kia … but on Giris, on Abalsil, on Gal-Mul, even on sacred Nibir-Anu itself … on all of the worlds of the Anunnaki, flame, flood, and destruction rained from the skies.
But among the galaxy’s suns, numbering in the hundreds of billions, there were so many worlds, worlds enough that a few might be overlooked even by the Destroyers of the Gods. Here, on Enduru, the Ahannu colony had survived, overlooked by the Hunter fleets searching for them among the stars.
Had the surviving An been discovered at last? …
Lul-Ka-Tah had been dust for millennia, but her memories survived, regrown in Tu-Kur-La’s brain before his birth. In a way, she lived once again, as Tu-Kur-La would live again someday, when the need was great.
Her memories, of course, flocked like birds around the Great Destruction that had come from the stars, the Hunters of the Dawn and their sick thirst for the extinction of all who were not like them. That part of Tu-Kur-La that was Lul-Ka-Tah was certain that the attack threatening Enduru now must be the Libir-Erim, the Ancient Enemy that had smashed the far-flung empire of the gods millennia ago.
But Tu-Kur-La had last been awakened from the Sleep of Ages a mere two cycles ago, when strange Blackheads, ignorant of their place and bearing weapons of power, had descended from the skies of Enduru, demanding equal standing with the gods.
The thought was sheer foolishness, of course. None were the equal of the Dingir, not even the Ancient Enemy who, after all, had failed in his quest for the extinction of the Ahannu. And as for the former slaves of the gods, the domesticated creatures of the lost world of Kia, such could never aspire to be gods themselves. Such would be erinigargal, an utter and monstrous abomination that the universe itself could never permit to exist.
The information coming through now from the Kikig—the control center—suggested that these attackers were the wild descendants of zah-sag-ura, no more. They’d been dealt with once before, they would be dealt with again. Permanently.
“To the defenses!” A commander-of-sixties hissed the order, and the Ahannu god-warriors chanted their response and started for the door.
“Not you, Tu-Kur-La,” the commander-of-sixties said. “You are a Keeper of Memories, is it true?”
“Truth, Commander.”
“Then your place is at Kikig Kur-Urudug. They will need you there, in the Abzu.” Kur-Urudug. The Mountain of the Thunderstorm Weapon. “Give your weapon to another.”
He handed his anenkara to a drone warrior nearby, who dropped his heavy mitul with a glad shout at the unexpected gift.
“I serve the sacred memory of Nibir-Anu,” Tu-Kur-La said.
“Go, then, Dingir-Gubidir, and serve.”
He blinked his eyes twice in the ritual Gesture of Respectful Assent and hurried out.
16
25 JUNE 2148
Lander Dragon Three
Ishtar, approaching Krakatoa LZ