Work Text:
A fork of lightning split the sky and the roar of thunder rolled through the valley. Heavy, colorless rain slid down my plated skin, baptizing me in the Sultana’s glorious favor. Blood and mud were washed from my joints and I was as clean as the day I emerged from the forges of Siaghat Alnaar.
My pilot, my Malak, Ibn Ibrahim was sitting in the cockpit nestled deep in my chest cavity. His fingers tightened around my controls, his knuckles ran white. Wires slithered out from my metal core and wormed into the cerebral jack in the back of his neck. I can feel his eyes move from one screen to the next, leaping from sensor to sensor for any semblance of motion.
He was restless and he was right to be. We had stood guard at the kingdom’s border and already two bands of marauders had attempted to cross over in the cover of night only to be mashed to paste by machine gun fire. The twin barrels on my right still bellowed smoke like monsters of antediluvian myth. Heat radiated up my arm and I could feel Ibn’s arm tense as though the flames licked his skin.
With a loud ping I focused his attention to the scanner. Gold dots blinked on the black crystal screen, movements of wildlife scattering from the disturbance no doubt. He holds his attention to the monitor and resumes looking through the forward optics. Nothing but soot and craters of ash surrounded us. Invaders choked the soil. Their heads sprouted like morbid crops. With a press of a button, Ibn lifted my leg up and grinds it into their shattered remains until they were indistinguishable from the muck.
Satisfaction, the results of dopamine flooding his brain, shot up the cerebral link and into my circuits. I shutter. Just as Ibn can feel my body as if it were his own, I can feel my Malak’s emotions as if I had experienced them. It was days like these I cherished the most. My pilot, my Malak, was my heart and soul. Every time he jacked into my system and took his rightful place in the pilot cavity I felt alive. So alive. With him every battle left adrenaline pumping through my rubber veins, the pounding of ammunition casings the size of tanks slotting into my gun’s chamber fills me with anticipation, and even these quiet moments held their satisfaction where we can bask in the glory of our hard work knowing the border is upheld. I almost wished the Sultana would seal my cavity so that my precious Ibn could never know a moment without me beside him. Then again, I would never feel the loving aftercare he gives me. No one does maintenance better than a Malak to their mech.
I expelled the heat, venting it through my exhausts and white steam stained the midnight air. Ibn relaxed, taking in a slow breath to steady his heart. I make an effort to stabilize my internal gyros as he scans the horizon for movement.
“Nothing. Nothing. Still nothing.” Ibn let out a sobering sigh. “Hopefully that’s the last of them. Lucky those savages can’t scavenge anything worth a damn. I’ve seen scorpions pack a bigger sting than them. They never stood a chance against you, An-Nisa.” He rubbed his hands along the inside of the cockpit. His skin is warm against my cold metal as he whispers my name. I provide cerebral feedback through our connection in place of words I cannot speak. I still curse my maker for denying me a true voice.
I could only inject hormone suppressants to quell any budding anxieties. A fresh dose flushed into the cerebral jack and Ibn slumped in his chair. His heart steadied to an exceptional pace.
“Ahhh~ That’s the stuff~” He purred. He reached over, drunkenly pressing the buttons of an ancient media player. Sound spilled out of the speakers, crackled and garbled, but Ibn didn’t seem to mind. He tapped his fingers to the barks and roars of brass instruments. They’re loud. Loud enough to drown out the sound of the rain.
He looked so cute, cradled in his chair, comfortable and safe inside me. I watched him through my interior cameras, taking note of how his body quivered as the suppressants took hold. I monitored his vitals, stimulants at the ready in case I overdosed him. As precious as him falling asleep inside me - not the first instance of such an occurrence - I needed him awake. The night was young and the hounds were on the hunt.
My sensors detected movement on the western crater. A cloud of dust bloomed from the shredded remains of an old home uninhabited for decades. A shadow twisted and folded out in the smoke and I detected a jolt of energy running through the figure. As soon as I fed the information to Ibn, along with a milligram of stimulants, he shot to attention and turned us towards the source of the disturbance.
“This is An-Nisa!” Ibn’s voice spat through my speakers. A cold, mechanical voice boomed with the righteous fury of the Sultana herself and the earth fell silent to listen. “You are in violation of the Azrael Accords! Turn back or return to your masters in pieces! This is your only warning!”
A foul wind scattered the shroud of smoke, revealing the interloper that laid within. The mech, a Sayatin model four, stomped forward on crooked feet. Its head was shaped to that of an ibis, a bird of the foreign land it hailed from. On its shoulders, I detected the long arm of a rail rifle slung over its back on a series of interconnected hinges. The mouth of the barrel spat a wad of lightning and my sensors rang out in alarm. The earth trembled as the Sayatin took its first steps, kicking up ash and dirt as it barreled towards us. Ibn flicked the safety cover of the firing controls, his finger caressed the rim of the button and I felt a smile stretch across his thin lips. I imagine my own chiseled visage doing the same, if such a feat were possible.
We step forward, our guns snarled as the gears whirled within, slotting the ammunition in their proper chambers. “And here I thought tonight would be boring.” Ibn leaned forward, eyes pressed against the crystal screen projecting my sight to him. “For the Sultana!” He roared and squeezed my triggers.
The night was washed away with muzzle flash. Each shot sent shockwaves beneath me. Beads of ash, dust and dirt leapt from the ground as though startled at the sudden apocalypse unfolding before them.
The Sayatin leapt to the side as the earth exploded where it stood. It moved as a blur, faster than my sensors could read. Something struck my shoulder, sending us flying in an uncontrollable pirouette. Ibn extended my hands out to catch us just before we hit the ground. My hydraulics wheezed, taking the brunt of the impact, before quickly pushing ourselves back. The Sayatin’s beaked head emerged in the corner of my optic perception and its metal fist crashed into my head.
My vision was static and that meant so was Ibn’s. My arms shoot out, sweeping the valley in a volley of gunfire.
“Come on! Come on! Work! Don’t fail me now, An-Nisa!” Ibn shouts.
I set to work, rerouting my systems to get some sort of visual. The crystal screen fizzles and cracks, but an image appears. Flat, colorless, but it was the best I could do in a short time.
“That’s my girl!” Ibn yanks my controls and my arms pull to the side where the Sayatin lay pounced for another attack. Fire erupted from his back and the machine soared high on flaming wings. Its rail cannon shot up, sliding down on its shoulder, aimed directly at us. A thin blue light sliced through the sky, no louder than a whisper. I made a split second calculation. Ibn’s reaction time was .0034 percent slower than would be needed to dodge the attack. Projectile fire would not be an adequate defense as the laser would slice through any solid matter placed in front of it.
My jets were active. I knew - down to the exact decimal percentage - the distance and the force needed to evade. I gripped the cerebral jack, pulling the strings of my own pilot and Ibn’s wrists twisted sideways without his input. “What the-?” Ibn gasped as we hurled ourselves to the side and the ground where we once stood evaporated in blinding blue light.
“The sultanate shall fall!” The Sayatin wastes no time seizing the advantage. The machine slammed into me, its back aflame with burning wings as it dragged me through the mud. I prime my jets to fire back, to slow us down, but Ibn had a better idea. He raised my cannons and fired round after round into the enemy’s ribs. The shrieking of metal on metal filled my audio receptors. Sparks danced and exploded into the air. The Sayatin reeled back as I grabbed its face and shoved it into the dirt.
“SUCKKKKKKKKK!” Ibn cheered. He leaned us forward, carving up the soil with the enemy’s face. His music was blaring, an anthem to our one man war against the world. I was so caught up in it myself that I failed to notice the Sayatin’s arm roll back across it’s shoulder. It flicked its wrist and an explosion flooded my vision.
The round ripped through my chest and I felt fear pulse through my circuits. My torso erupted, my body cracked open like a hollow egg. My legs buckled beneath me. I could no longer feel Ibn’s touch on my controls. As I collapse I run a system diagnosis and red warning runes run across my internal interface.
[Pilot cavity: compromise. Fire suppression systems: unavailable. Warning! Warning! Fuel tank breached. Shut down emanate. Estimated time: five minutes.]
Black, oily sludge runs down my thigh, gushing from the pulsing wound in my chest. The warning burned into my visual optics. My fuel pump has been breached. I only have seconds before I am bled dry like a stuffed pig. The Sayatin circles over me, the head of the ibis appearing as a wicked carrion ready to pick me clean the moment I expire.
Ibn.
I focused my inner optics and through the buzzing visual static I saw my Ibn slumped in his chair, bleeding. A quick scan of his vitals showed that he was alive and I quickly went to work, flushing his body with stimulants to wake him. He twisted and spasmed as his ligaments pulled and his muscles contracted, but still he wouldn’t rise from his slumber. Potential concussion, I hypothesized. Stimulants would do nothing.
I listened carefully, blocking out the audio frequency that the enemy’s laughter broadcasted from and focused on my Ibn. My Malak, sweet, resilient, Malak. I was careless. I allowed myself to reckless abandon of your well being. I was designed to protect you and I have failed.
The rain ran black with my blood and I wondered how much of yours mingled with it; the thirsty soil drinking us dry. I still think of it. The storm was unsympathetic to our plight and offered us no mercy. The haze of soaked audio receptors, I could only hear the honking laughter of the enemy pilot. It sounded like cathedral bells at a funeral.
The carrion ibis swooped down, ready to plunge its beak directly into my heart, my Malak, my pilot, my Ibn…
A spark shot through our cerebral jack. The connection was intact. Without thinking, I reached down into that connection and saw the world as Ibn had.
I opened his eyes, staring out through the torn portal from the inside. The enemy Sayatin swooped down and I barely grabbed my own controls with meaty appendages to blast us to the side. The Sayatin crashed into the earth, shocked that victory slipped through its fingers.
I spun to my feet, stomping my colossal leg into the ground before leaping onto the Sayatin. I grabbed the beast's rail cannon and tore it off its hinges, tossing it aside as useless ruble. The Sayatin’s jets burned, sending up soaring upward into the night sky towards the sightless heavens.
“Why? Won’t? You? Die?” The metal beast snarled, reeling its fists back to steal Ibn away from me.
I pulled Ibn’s arm over the controls, lifting my own arm up to the sky. My fingers wrapped around a bolt of lightning, my circuits were alive with righteous fury. I grabbed the Sayatin by its throat, forcing it to watch as I plunged my fist straight through its heart.
The Sayatin clawed at the gaping hole in its chest as we fell. Its large colossal fingers reached inside as if to press the delicate controls itself, before we both crashed into the earth. For a moment all was silent. The rain hushed to mourn the dead. I stirred, feeling every ache and pain shooting up Ibn’s spine. Each breath was met with needles poking me from the inside. Broken ribs. There was pain, but he was alive. Being alive meant he could be fixed, he could be repaired. I just had to make it home.
The enemy Sayatin was beside me, lying down dead in a newly made ditch. Its pilot was nothing more than a red stain between my fingers. One quick squeeze was all it took to reduce the vile creature into rich, meaty pulp. A flick of my wrist rid me of most of the gore and all that remained was the sound of relentless rain.
[Warning! Warning! Engine failure imminent! Please refuel at your nearest convenience.]
I dragged myself over to the fallen Sayatin, ripping it apart piece by piece until I found what I was looking for. Its beating reactor still pulsed in its chest when I tore it from its ribs. In a brutal operation I shoved the foreign component into my own design and my inner repair circuits did the rest.
With my fuel restored, I denied myself a moment’s calm. Ibn’s heartbeat was weak and required hands more graceful than my own. I stood up, scanned the horizon one last time and marched back home.
I puppet Ibn long enough to turn on his music machine. The already ill repaired device was near ruin, now waterlogged and splattered with blood, yet the music it sang was gentler, sweeter. It had lost its taste of brutality and simply wished to sing. I cannot pray. My creator gave me no voice to do so. I only hope that my Malak could hear the sweet songs of home. Maybe one day he’ll confide in me if he does. Maybe one day I will be able to ask him.
I am An-Nisa, 3rd company of the great people’s army of the eternal Sultana. My Malak is Ibn Ibrahim, third born son of the golden praetors. There is no force in this world or the next that shall stop me from completing my main objections.
- Obey the Sultana.
- Complete the Mission.
- Protect the Pilot.
I live and die by my purpose.