Kill Machine (The Hroza Connection Book 6)

by William Vitka

  “I’ve been busy. Ain’t easy acting as humanity’s diplomat to an advanced race that’s convinced they gotta eradicate Earth.” He feigns a smile. “By the way, an armada of saucers arrived at the moon four hours ago.”

  * * *

  Gordineer follows me through the tunnels in the bowels of the Beast.

  Ew.

  He says to me, “Can I get jeans? And a sweater?” Sounding like an excited kid.

  “Uh, yeah. Shouldn’t be a problem. So you want booze, jeans and a sweater?”

  “And a woman. Holy shit, a human woman.”

  “We don’t operate like that. You want a woman, you gotta convince her to make a mistake just like the rest of us morons.” I keep walking. Talking. “The fuck long’ve you been with the aliens?”

  “Time gets all—” he holds his hand out. Wobbles it back and forth. “Gets all weird when you’re hopping around at high speeds in a spaceship in different gravitational fields. Uh... In Earth-years, I should be like ninety or a hundred by now.”

  It’s made him a little...weird.

  I arch my eyebrows. Puff my cheeks. “So you’re telling me you really need that drink, huh?”

  “And to get laid.”

  “I just told you—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll try my luck later.”

  “Hey, man. Young at heart. Swing for the fences.” Goofy fuck doesn’t have a prayer. “What we need before any of that is info, which I assume is why you called.” I gesture for him to enter a conference room where Jack and Catarina are setting up comms and holographic screens and a bottle of whiskey.

  Jack plops down in a chair across the table from Catarina. Checks his wrist.

  Whole scene reminds me of being dragged into a meeting by dipshit higher-ups when I was a journalist cuz I didn’t suck their dicks in quite the right way.

  Gordineer makes a bee line for the booze. Pours himself a glass. Takes a gulp. Coughs as it burns. He makes a noise like, khlwhoo. Says, “Aliens make terrible whiskey. They have their own version but it doesn’t mix well with humans at all.” He licks his lips. “They had to reconstruct my liver six times.” He considers that. “And my kidneys twice.”

  Jack rolls his eyes. “You can’t hold your liquor. Why are you here?”

  Aw, shit. Strap in for some hardcore exposition!

  Gordineer takes another swig. “Back in Alaska, when their ship crashed, I was on the radio. And the saucer sent out some kinda signal that—” he blinks. Frowns. “Rearranged something in my brain, so I can hear em when they’re nearby. Understand em in their own tongue. Like telepathy but it ain’t telepathy.”

  “Yeah, quantum bullshit. Happened to me and my brother with the Hroza. Been there.” Jack twirls his finger. “Spit it out.”

  “That’s why I wanted to meet here. Sealed off from the pilots. They’re worried, but they don’t wanna give you guys a reason to get twitchy. They don’t trust you.”

  I chuckle. “Feeling’s mutual.”

  Catarina glowers at me then turns her attention to Gordineer. “What’re they so worried about, exactly? Gotta be pretty obvious that we’re dealing with the parasite.”

  Gordineer seats himself. Tries to make his ass comfy in the office chair. Drags the bottle of whiskey along the table. “The pilots don’t see it that way. Far as they’re concerned, our blue ball is a big parasite colony hurtling through space. One that could infect other worlds. Spread the disease endlessly.”

  “You gotta be fuckin kidding. It’s not like the parasite’s gonna build a spaceship or anything. It can’t leave the planet.”

  Jack nods. “We should be allowed to deal with this on our own.”

  Gordineer shakes his head. “You’re not... Shit, I’m talking literally.” He swills whiskey. “That fuckin tumor in the Milwaukee Deep? It ain’t just a huge conglomeration of infected tissue.” He pours more alcohol. “It’s digging under the crust. Burrowing. You called it a ‘planet-eater.’ It definitely can be if it wants to be. Slither under the continents and just...consume. But the pilots think this motherfucker actually wants to crack the Earth open. Shuck off the parts of the world it doesn’t need. Then wrap itself around our hot solid core and go to sleep till some other species bumps into it.”

  It’s my turn to grab the whiskey. I take a mouthful. Light a cigarette. “That can’t, uh, that can’t happen. Gravitational forces are a real bitch, y’know? It’s not gonna be able to break the sun’s orbit—and that’s with me entertaining the notion that the parasite could somehow throw the majority of the world into space.”

  Gordineer shrugs. “That’s just what the pilots are thinking. I was a goddamn logger, man. Now I’m playing diplomat.”

  “You’d be better off trying to convince me that the planet-eater is gonna hurl itself out our atmosphere, grow wings, and fly away.”

  “Or,” Catarina says, “that it’d throw gooballs of itself across the void of space.”

  Jack taps the desk. “Directed panspermia.”

  Gordineer bites his lip. “The pilots are considering both of those as realistic possibilities as well.” He steals the booze back. “Ever since they contained the parasite on their own worlds, they’ve been terrified of seeing it elsewhere. At the same time, they were...hesitant about saving humans like you. You’re parasite carriers yourselves—but you’re curious to em. They think you might be a means to control the infected.”

  Well, that answers one question.

  I say, “Y’know, maybe I’m an asshole or I’m just late to the party, but how the hell’d the pilots wind up dealing with the infection anyway?”

  “The pilots ain’t what you’d call—” Gordineer puts his palms up “—good guys. They’re an efficient race. I guess not bad guys either. Not like super evil villains. They’re different’n us.” Gordineer stares at the table. Collects his thoughts. “Anyway, they reached a point where they started manufacturing soldiers to fight their wars for em. Engineered warriors. Genetically and biomechanically. Whatever worked.”

  Jack titters. “They don’t really sound all that different.” He casts his eyes around from Catarina to me. “How many robots have we used and abused?”

  “Point is, they were always looking for new combinations. New ideas. New weapons. When they found one of the Hroza flying through deep space, they thought they’d hit a goldmine of genetic information.” Shrug. “Till they got it home and it went apeshit. They realized what was happening pretty fast—but not fast enough. Infected pilots would commandeer saucers and rush off to other worlds. To give you some idea about how super fuckin bad shit started to look for em, the pilots had colonized twenty-five planets at that time.” Gordineer chugs whiskey. “They got four now.”

  The room settles. Gets quiet.

  I watch Jack’s expression. Apathy with a frosting of cigarette smoke and a spritz of gloominess. Catarina’s is similar, but she’s thinking more than he is.

  She says, “Why didn’t the pilots just...kill the Hroza?”

  Gordineer says, “You’re not thinking like a pilot.”

  “Or an arms dealer,” Jack says.

  “Yeah, that’s better. That’s...” Gordineer chuckles. “Man, that’s fuckin funny too.” He points to Catarina. “Imagine you’re an alien arms dealer who’s used to making organic weapons. Right?”

  Catarina crosses her arms. “Right.”

  “Would you destroy the coolest biological weapon you’ve ever seen? The pilots thought the Hroza was gonna revolutionize how they fought their ground battles. It would either destroy everything on the planet or the parasite would. They sent it along with some of their best warriors in their best ship: the Cukru’Prso. Which, y’know, crashed near the logging camp I was working at and also woke up your Hroza on Earth.” He shrugs. “Now we’re here.”

  Jack laughs. With a hint of hysteria. “We got fucked by
hubris.”

  “Nah. Infection was inevitable. What does suck is that I knew about it when I took the pilots’ ship. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I knew cuz the pilots knew. I just hoped...I could get back to the pilot homeworld. Get us some help.” Gordineer furrows his brow. “I tried.”

  Heard that one before.

  Yeah. Still a day late and a dollar short.

  Should I repeat myself, or do you think you’ve got that covered?

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Armada. You said the fuckin aliens have an armada near the moon. Why is there an armada near the moon?”

  Gordineer says, “So they can blow up the planet.”

  “That’s just...it? There’s no way out of this?”

  Jack pounds the table. “Those blue bastards saw us kill the meat slug. We can take care of ourselves.” His knuckles turn white. “They don’t have the right to decide anything for us.”

  Catarina nods. “We’ve sacrificed everything for this world. The survivors. Our families.” She points to me. “We...condemned our son to this life. They absolutely do not have the fuckin right.”

  Gordineer pours himself another drink. “Again, guys, the pilots don’t see it that way. As long as the parasite roams the Earth...” The corners of his lips pull down. His eyes flit from my mother to my father to me. “I’ll keep you in the loop best I can.”

  I snort. “Why bother?”

  Gordineer drains his whiskey. “Been gone for a while, but it’s my planet too. I’d prefer it didn’t end up as debris in space.” He tilts his head to the booze bottle. “Thanks for the drink.”

  15. See, I Told You I Was Smart

  Me, Jack, and Catarina meet with the other emergent in a secure room in the command tower. Lots of screens and holograms and blinking lights that I honestly never give a shit about till one of em alerts me to some new monster that wants to eat me.

  The eight of us standing. Arms crossed. Nobody chipper.

  Plissken’s here too. With Harryhausen, who Plissken seems to have taken on as a protégé-cum-partner in crime when it comes to mocking me.

  We tell em what Gordineer told us.

  The room’s quiet for about fifteen seconds before DeVille shouts, “Fuck that.”

  Athena raises her hand. “Seconded.”

  Aiden says, “Anyone considered the obvious?”

  Booker cocks an eye at my daughter’s partner. “That we’re fucked? Or is there some other magical obvious thing?”

  “For the record, you’re a jackass.” Aiden smiles.

  I break in. Say, “To be fair, we’re all jackasses. And wiseasses. Smartasses.” I shrug. “Basically, the whole group is varying forms of ass.”

  Yay! Family!

  Aiden says, “By obvious, I mean: Can’t we blow these cocksuckers up? Pilots wanna blow us up, let’s kill them instead.”

  Plissken bobs. Tips his forecurve toward Aiden.

  Harryhausen mimics him.

  Awww.

  Plissken says, “Are you competing with my old friend for dumb ideas?”

  Harryhausen chirps. Says nothing. Flashes a hologram of text that simply reads “DUMB.”

  Aiden rolls his eyes. “If we can shoot em down, what’s the problem?”

  Plissken puffs his thrusters. “Assuming we were to be successful in destroying the saucers—which I’m not convinced we would be, since I doubt the pilots would offer us antimatter technology if they thought the weapons would be a threat against them—there is an armada of ships waiting near the moon. Presumably to destroy the planet. Attacking the three closest to us would do little more than speed up the boom-boom process.”

  “...Right.”

  I scratch the side of my head. “Fuckin...” Run my hands through my hair. “Plissken, do you have any theories about how we can avoid losing the Earth?”

  “Fleeing like terrified children isn’t on the table?”

  “Not really dude.”

  “Well, then... As with many of your ideas, circling all the way around from ‘idiotic’ to ‘brilliant,’ or, at least, ‘workable,’ applies here.” Plissken dips toward Harryhausen.

  The little drone projects a hologram of the crawler’s journey toward New York City. It’s neat. Animated in real-time. Even shows the pilots’ three saucers hovering around us—which Plissken points to.

  Uh, as well as he can point.

  My best friend says, “In spite of what Mr. Gordineer says, I think the pilots arrived at the camp at a spectacularly convenient time...for them.”

  Sarah says, “Is Gordineer bullshitting us?”

  “No. At least, I don’t think so. From the recordings, he seemed too desperate for human interaction. Whiskey. Company.”

  Catarina laughs. “Sure, cuz desperate guys would never lie to get laid.”

  Plissken bobs. “Regardless of his need to shove his dick in something human, I studied his facial expressions and body language and, again, I think he’s as unhappy as the rest of us about the situation. He’d rather see us win.”

  We all eyeball Plissken. Our expression: Okay, and?

  He says, “Shit, you people. Think about it. The pilots waited until after they saw we would sacrifice ourselves to stop the biomass at the Ashokan Reservoir. They didn’t show up until then. They didn’t want to get involved, but they were curious. They’re still curious.” Plissken sounds pissed. Which’s unusual for him. “The three fucking saucers shadowing us are observing. Helping in a nondirect way—the antimatter, food replicators, cloning vats for livestock. We are an experiment to them. This is a test.” He stops for a moment. “Frankly, I’m insulted.”

  Jack smirks. “So who’s more clever? Those gangly alien bitches or our bots?”

  Plissken groans.

  Harryhausen mimics him.

  Aww... Wait, no, I’m getting sick of the cutesy shit.

  Plissken points again to the crawler and the hologram shooting outta Harryhausen. Says, “We follow the plan.” He turns to me. “We take back New York City. We prove the aliens wrong.”

  I smile. Pat Plissken’s side.

  He says, “The best way to prove the aliens wrong is to prove the aliens wrong.” He bobs in the air. “Because fuck them.”

  16. Hey! New York! What a Town!

  I could drag you through some of the inconsequential bullshit we saw on the way to NYCZ, but...then it’d be just the inconsequential bullshit we saw, right?

  It’s what pros like me call “fluff.”

  Crap.

  Pap.

  Bullshit.

  There are two notes of interest. Three, technically, but whatever:

  Valerie Swift is now qualified to pilot a Talos warframe. So, hey, good for her.

  Along those lines, Captain Thompson is gonna start trials soon. And I finally learned what his first name is, since he might survive for a while. It’s Daniel.

  And... Drum roll, please... Gordineer got laid. Against all odds, the geeky, weird sonuvabitch got laid thanks to a female survivor he met at Manny’s lizard chili shack.

  Oh, c’mon. See yourself in the mirror lately? Woof.

  We come at NYCZ from Fort Lee. Stop a half-mile short of the shattered George Washington Bridge. At the ludicrously huge toll area. We’ve already obliterated the Linwood Avenue overpass. Constitution Park and the little baseball diamond there. As well as everything else in the way.

  The Manhattan skyline looms ahead in the morning light. A silhouette shrouded by light rain that gets heavier as the moments tick away. Low clouds. I see the cracked buildings. Cracked bridges. Skeletal structures still reaching toward the clouds.

  The Empire State Building still stands.

  Radar scans tell us the parasite population is as high as when I left. Lotta assholes. Not as bad as the initial outbreak, but... Well...
At least there’s no biomass here?

  Smoke curls from my nostrils. My fingers grip the railing atop the command tower. It’s slick with precipitation. Chilly, but not quite cold.

  DeVille comes out to stand with me.

  I flick my cigarette away.

  She wraps an arm around my neck. Lays her head against my shoulder. Says, “How does it look?”

  I kiss the top of her head. Lean against her. “Still looks like home.”

  Well, holy shit did they kick the shit outta your home.

  Durandal ain’t lying.

  There are buildings totally consumed by the parasite. The Time Warner building. Trump Towers. The Murdoch Spire. Pretty much all of Wall Street. Though, to be fair, they were always infested with parasites.

  Zing!

  I’ll be here all week. Tip the veal. Enjoy your waitress.

  She’s delicious.

  Ah, just like old times.

  Since the bridges and tunnels are fucked, it makes a ground assault tough—which’s what we need to clear out the buildings and the sewers and all the rotten nooks.

  Or, it would make a ground assault tough. But the Beast is three goddamn miles long and can roll like motherfuckin thunder across the Hudson.

  I shout to the control room. “Sally forth, Plissken.”

  The Beast roars. Its treads rumble forward. Dirt and debris and bones and flesh chunks tumble from the crawler’s continuous track. Asphalt explodes under us. Some Chinese restaurant. A Citibank. A Wells Fargo. The Fort Lee Historic Park ends up looking like a bomb went off in it.

  Survivors cling to railings. Steady themselves as the Beast dips down the steep embankment. Splashes into the Hudson. Sends up huge cascades of water. Bloated bodies.

  Most of the river here’s less than forty feet deep. Doesn’t even make it a quarter of the way up our treads.

  Hola, bitches. I’m hoooome.

  It’s still a helluva entrance.

  One that wakes up parasites all around. I can hear em howling.

  The crawler comes aground in Fort Washington Park. Tramples the overgrown brush. Trees. Tennis courts that’ve seen better days.