Kill Machine (The Hroza Connection Book 6)

by William Vitka

  Fuck em anyway.

  Clyde says, “Yes, sir.”

  I look out at the blue. The green. The cresting waves. All the hundreds of parasites squirming below the surface. The sky jellyfish hovering some miles out. I say to myself, “Fuck you. This is my home.”

  Clyde locks on to something about a mile away.

  An undulating black cancer that looks like a tuna humped a spider the size of a humpback whale.

  I tell Clyde: “That’s plenty big.” I light a cigarette. Lock my arms back for balance. “Fire.”

  Twenty antimatter missiles hurl themselves from my shoulder. They thump away from their pods in rapid succession. The Penning Traps doing their obvious best to keep antiparticles from colliding with their housing—obvious cuz I haven’t exploded.

  The missiles angle up. Soar. Clyde zooms my vision in so I can see the spinning death tubes as they tumble. Readjust. Then refire when they’re angled down over the target.

  I get a view from the missile’s perspective. It plunges through the waves alongside its many brothers and sisters. Down. Down. The humpback spider tuna’s eyes blink once.

  Murder.

  My video feed goes black.

  Boner.

  A significant part of the Atlantic Ocean stops being there. Half a mile up and down and sideways.

  Engaged.

  I key my radio. “Plissken, I’d say the missiles work exceedingly-fuckin-well. Even when fired en masse. Penning Traps work. It all works.” I puff my cigarette. “It all works.” I smile.

  Plissken says, “I would love to tell the both of you that you have an excellent chance of surviving, but the biomass to our east is moving.”

  “Where?” Fuck I used all my missiles. “DeVille’s ready to rock.”

  DeVille says, “Goddamn right.”

  Plissken says, “It’s still in the Fundian Valley. Following the edge of the Georges Bank. Moving...uncomfortably fast. If you switch to long-range you might be able to see it.”

  “The fuck are we supposed to see something two hundred and seventy-five miles out.”

  “Try now.”

  Text appears in the upper right corner of my vision: PSKN1.003.a

  Plissken says, “I just upgraded your radar suite. Still buggy since it’s relying on data from drone scouts.”

  DeVille says, “Buggy my ass, it’s broken.”

  I switch over to my long range. There’s the dot. The blob. The biomass. Moving at...a hundred and fifty miles an hour. “When did the parasite get itself a speedboat?”

  DeVille says, “Current course puts its destination at the fort. We got problems.”

  “Of course it’s going for the fort.” I think for a second. “Plissken did we just fuck up like at Newark? Piss off a biomass by testing weapons?”

  Plissken hums. “...Possibly.”

  “I want every available Spartan on the perimeter. I want Talos pilots in their gear and moving. I want the aliens up on defense. You’ve got one hour to get the Beast mobile. Evacuate the fuckin fort. We’re coming back to resupply.” I look to DeVille. “We’re rolling out whether we like it or not.”

  6. Ever See Tremors?

  I empty my bladder into Clyde’s catheter. Wait for the robot to process the urine. Turn it into drinking water. Then take a mouthful.

  Not quite as tasty as whiskey, but I’m trying my hand at this whole “you’re gonna be a father soon, quit acting like a college student” thing.

  I detach myself from the neural harness. Punch open a storage compartment in the cockpit. Grab one of a hundred packs of American Spirits. I pound it. Unwrap it. Light a fresh smoke. Stretch my legs. Grab a packet of beef jerky.

  Nice thing about having your own forty-foot tall death machine is you can stock it how you like. Plenty of cargo space. So me and DeVille load the thigh compartments with a few spare 50mm drums for our chainguns. Gives us fifteen hundred rounds apiece. On top of the twenty antimatter missiles and the rail guns hooked on our backs with magnets.

  Chainguns for small targets. Railgun for armor. Antimatter for the big bastard zipping his way here at a hundred-fifty. Since it’s twice as big as the meat slug Caleb had to sacrifice himself to kill, we’re not thrilled about this whole thing. Mostly cuz the biomass is supposedly six miles long, a mile wide, and three hundred feet tall. Best we can really hope to do is cripple the damn thing. Buy the survivors time to get on the Beast.

  Get the fuck outta Dodge.

  Well, hey, the biomass only weighs...uh...a bit over a trillion tons or so right? No sweat!

  Makes me wish the pilots had a better plan than blowing up the whole planet, but that seems surprisingly reasonable right now.

  We feel the giant meat slug before we see it. Vibrations under our feet. The warframes’ seismographs tick away.

  I stuff some jerky in my face.

  DeVille says, “It’s ten minutes out.”

  I say, “We got a missile lock-on yet?”

  “Just did. The biomass is twenty-five miles away. Coming fast.”

  “Light the motherfucker up.”

  “Bonnie doesn’t wanna target it.”

  “Fuckin why?” I rush back to Clyde’s neural harness. Plug myself in.

  “It’s under the goddamn ground. Started tunneling. Two miles under. The missiles don’t have any penetration. They’re gonna detonate on the seafloor.”

  “Fuck. Fuck.” I radio Plissken. “Tell me you’ve got the survivors evacuated.” I turn away from the increasing waves—the little tsunami created by the meat slug’s feverish race to the fort. Clyde’s vision zooms in on the Beast. I see a buzzing hive of activity. Drones. Robots. The Beast’s treads rumble to life. “Cuz we’ve got no chance of stopping this thing while it’s underground.”

  “We’ve loaded the necessary equipment, machinery, the Daedalus, and survivors. We’ll be moving shortly. Though I can tell you that nobody’s particularly happy about it.”

  “Beats being absorbed into nightmare parasite flesh, right?”

  “That seems to depend on who you ask.”

  There are eight other Talos warframes near the fort, guarding the Beast. Catarina, Jack, Booker, Sarah, Aiden, my daughter Athena, DeVille’s daughter Jade. I see bright green IDs over their heads on my display.

  The pilots’ saucers hover in a loose triangle. Dunno what they’re waiting for. Don’t even know what the fuck I’m supposed to expect from em.

  Our five remaining choppers are settled at their pads on the Beast.

  Even Juliet’s safely docked. Running defense for the crawler.

  My parents wave.

  Cuz why not, I guess.

  Jade thrusts her hips.

  Cuz... I have no idea. She’s like that.

  DeVille shouts. “It’s breaching! Ten miles.”

  I twist my Talos around again. Target the meat slug.

  The ground bucks under us as the parasite flatworm breaks into the water.

  A heartbeat thuds in my chest. My missiles autofire.

  The biomass streams through the blue. Screams into the sky. Its face a collection of mouths and gnashing teeth. Up. Up. For a mile. Two. Its bulk disappears into the storm clouds. Blocks out what little sun there is. Snow shudders around the throbbing, mottled flesh. There are thousands of bony protrusions along its sides—talons or claws it must use to propel itself through the ground.

  DeVille’s missiles roar free beside me. Their smoke trails intertwine.

  Explosions erupt along the meat slug. Ragged chunks of flesh as big as buses slough off. Whole sections along the flatworm vaporize.

  Me and DeVille manage to clip off the last two miles of the motherfucker with missiles. Whatever you could call its tail.

  The rest of the vast creature doesn’t give a shit. It arcs over the water. A stumbling skyscraper. Di
ves back down with a splash that sends gore and seventy-foot waves in every direction.

  The meat slug burrows underneath us.

  I shout into the radio, “Jack, Catarina, we got its ass. There’s still four miles of pissed off parasite heading for the fort.”

  Jack says, “We saw. Kinda hard to miss.”

  My radar lights up. Thousands of new signals.

  Squiggly, wriggly signals.

  DeVille unloads her three remaining missiles. Takes a significant slice outta the new signal’s population. “They’re goddamn squid things.” Her 50mm chaingun burps out a stream of bullets.

  “Cowgirl, they’re all goddamn squid things.”

  Japaaaaaan!

  But she ain’t wrong. They’re squids. Fleshy pink. With skull faces and human eyes. But basically squids.

  Hundreds of angry Cthulhu heads.

  Cthulittles deposited by a massive meat slug.

  Makes me think of some kinda troop carrier.

  Clyde’s targeting software keeps my 50mm shells going where they need to: the brains of the Cthulittles. They’re high enough caliber they turn the parasite parade into chum.

  The Cthulittles skitter near the surface of the water. Their tentacles flail. They chitter. Squeal. Dead-set on me and DeVille’s position.

  My chaingun buzzes in response. “Yeah, yeah. Suck my dick.” I send another hundred rounds into the mass of squids. Unlock the drum magazine from the side of the chaingun. “Reloading.” I drop the spent mag. Slam another one home. Feed the belt. Lock the bolt.

  DeVille’s bullet-hell bursts halt. “Hold up. Check it out.” She one-hands her chaingun. Points into the chaos of the waves.

  A big leviathan—a fuckin whale with spider legs—swoops up under a group of Cthulittles. Mouth open. It engulfs a few dozen. They struggle to squirm from the leviathan’s lips.

  The whale locks its jaw shut.

  DeVille laughs. “Well, fuck em. Leave the squids for the fish.”

  I wanna correct her and tell her they’re supposed to be called “Cthulittles,” but I realize how goddamn stupid that would sound and hold my tongue.

  We turn to rush back to the fort. Offer support.

  Catarina’s voice cuts across the radio. “Sonuvabitch.”

  The meat slug launches itself from Boston Harbor.

  Missiles pound it.

  The flatworm hammers into the eastern wall of what used to be Camp Svoboda. Shatters the stones like LEGOs. Thrashes. Downs the apartment buildings. It burrows underground again.

  Half the fort is in ruins.

  Cthulittles scurry in swarms. Unleashed from the meat slug’s wounds.

  Jade murders with glee and purpose. She’s flanked by Plissken’s children, Lovelace and Turing. The both of em now fifteen feet tall, same as Jade. Sleek mechs.

  They clamber through the ruins of the fort.

  The fort that was supposed to be safe.

  Ten years of planning by Caleb to build a sanctuary for survivors of the infection. A base of operations for us to fight back from.

  Poof. Gone. Cuz of this asshole.

  Another home destroyed.

  So much for the idea that they’re not getting smarter. Tactical.

  Shit. The mimics put that to rest three months ago.

  So...what’s telling the parasites what to do?

  I can’t blame this on you, can I?

  Sadly, no. My powers are limited to healing your broken butt and making you feel like a jerk.

  I bark into the radio. “Protect the Beast at all fuckin costs. Don’t let a single survivor fall.” I switch frequencies so the people we’re ferrying on the crawler can hear me. “Fight. Don’t wait for an invitation. Every man, woman and child who can. You fight. Give the parasites hell. We haven’t made it this far to be taken down by a goddamn flatworm.”

  Tracer fire erupts from the turrets and cannons on the Beast’s battlements. They flash. Turn the area around the crawler into Omaha Beach.

  Not the best metaphor, but...

  DeVille’s big Talos hand grips my shoulder.

  I nod to her.

  We plunge back into Boston Harbor. March through the cloudy waters. Kick up the speed so we’re running.

  A thin, beaked leviathan corkscrews passed us. It heads for the excitement. The thrashing of Cthulittles in the water. Parasite species of nonhuman origin going after food that’s still got some yummy homo sapien in it.

  A second leviathan grabs my Talos’s left forearm as I run. A yellow and black crocodile with an undulating centipede body.

  Maybe it’s a mistake, but it’s a bad one.

  I punch its skull with my right fist. Dig a thumb into one of its eyes. Palm its head. Hook my middle finger around the top of another eye socket.

  Then I pull.

  The bones fracture. Crack. The top of the leviathan’s skull pops off in my hand. Thick red blood curls in billowy wisps from the creature’s pale brain.

  I mash the skull cap down into the mind meat. Its body spasms. Its jaws unclench. I push the malformed mutant away to feed some other nightmare.

  Me and DeVille storm the shore east of camp. Water cascades from our warframes. Our chainguns. Droplets whip up in a mist as the weapon barrels spin.

  We open fire without a word. Mow down hundreds of skull-faced squids. Splatter their fuckin faces against the wrecked remains of the fort. Then march to join our family at the defensive perimeter they’re holding near the Beast.

  The crawler dwarfs us. Damn thing might even be able to take a hit from the meat slug. But if it does, there’ll be a shitload of casualties.

  I shout to the other emergent. “Hold the line. Kill all the things.”

  Booker shouts back. “Incoming.”

  Warframe collision alarms shriek inside every cockpit. I can hear em cuz we’re all yelling at each other to get the fuck outta the way. Arguing over the squad comms.

  The meat slug breaches. Eradicates a mile of Telegraph Hill. Sends trees and debris from family homes into the air as it soars. Blots out the sun again. Plows through the clouds.

  Me and DeVille keep our chainguns running. Missiles from the other emergent scream through the sky. Turn more and more of the flatworm into chowder while Cthulittles rain down.

  It ain’t enough.

  I watch in horror as the front end of the meat slug arcs toward the crawler. A goddamn flesh bomb aimed right at the survivors. Millions of tons of infected flesh.

  I failed.

  Again.

  The parasite worm roars.

  And.

  It.

  Smashes its grotesque head against some invisible barrier that shimmers for a flash like a blue dome. The creature’s body crumples. A gory accordion.

  My family pounds the area with missiles. Turn it to ash. Particulates. The meat slug and all of its skull-faced squid become dust in the snowy wind.

  I blink. Sniff.

  Well. That was something.

  Plissken says over the radio, “I told you a defensive charged plasma bubble was within reach. Where would you be without me.”

  The radio explodes with cheers.

  My family, new members and old, embrace one another with mechanical hands.

  As if in response, Boston—from the Massachusetts State House to the Financial District and North End—lets out a mournful cry. It shakes itself. Starts to rise on immense tentacle legs. It lumbers toward us. A slow titan.

  Jack, Catarina, Booker, Sarah, Athena and Aiden fire a combined thirty-seven antimatter missiles at it.

  Jade shouts, “Shut the fuck up.” Does a little air hump.

  The walking city wails. Collapses on itself.

  I light a cigarette. “Yeah. I wanna go home.”

  Sarah’s voice cuts across the comms. �
�Hey, we’ve got something else. Small though. Only around a hundred feet long. Burrowing.”

  I raise my chaingun. DeVille does the same.

  Jack holds up a big hand. “Hang on.”

  The shape gets closer. The signal. Closer and closer. I can hear rumbling.

  The ground in South Boston cracks.

  Pilots move their saucers over the spot.

  I see thick, mottled legs. Tentacles.

  Catarina says, “Fuck me, it’s Three.”

  Three emerges from the pavement and dirt. His red and blue eyes lock onto my warframe. He shakes debris from his bulky form like a dog.

  The energy weapons on the pilots’ saucers charge.

  I train my chaingun on the alien ships. Shout on the radio. “You open fire on that Hroza and I swear I’ll murder your whole fuckin species.”

  My family follows my lead.

  The pilots don’t mutter a sound. Their ships disengage.

  Three says, “Congratulations, emergent. You certainly are much taller.”

  7. Brilliant. Now, My Plan Is To... Uh... Crap

  Three says, “I am sorry about Caleb.” He looks down at me and my emergent kin. His weird flat tail flush with the ground. Our Talos warframes docked with the Beast for reloading. We stand under his gaze in a clearing near the crawler. He says, “And thank you for preventing the pilots from destroying me.”

  I nod. “Yeah. Guess it’s just been one of those apocalypses.” Rub my face. Light a fresh cigarette. “Fuck’re you doing here anyway?”

  “I would have arrived at the camp sooner, but you may have noticed that it has been exceedingly fucking dangerous as of late, what with the massive parasite forms.”

  Jack smirks. “You cursed. Correctly, for once.” The smirk disappears. A frown takes its place. Probably cuz he’s thinking about his dead brother.

  This’s a weird reunion.

  Yeah. Weird and depressing.

  Three studies DeVille, Athena, Aiden, Booker and Sarah. “You are all rather interesting.” He dips down. Gets his wriggling face feelers close to DeVille. Her belly. Our son and daughter. Twins. “Very interesting.”

  DeVille cocks an eye at the ancient titan. “Go creep someone else out, pal.”