Mutant Chronicles

by Matt Forbeck

  “And she believed you?”

  “To this day.”

  “Can you not swear to her again?”

  El Jesus had frowned. “Those other times, I figured I’d probably make it. Not so much this time.”

  Samuel had thrown up his hands. “We need you, Corporal. With your help, we can save the world.”

  El Jesus had nodded. “I understand that, Padre. I really do. And I appreciate the tickets. Muchas gracias for those. But I—I need one more thing from you.”

  Samuel had waited silently for the corporal to go on.

  “I need absolution.”

  Samuel had regarded the corporal coldly. “Are you sorry for your sins?”

  A lopsided grin had appeared on the big man’s face. “Not really, Padre.”

  “Then there’s nothing I can do.”

  “But Brother, you have to. I need you to.” He had looked toward the kitchen door, out toward where his mother and sister were sitting in the parlor, chatting excitedly, thrilled that they had hope again—hope and a chance to live. “Please.”

  “I cannot lie for you.”

  “You’re asking me to die for you,” El Jesus had said. “Just tell my mami you’ve set it up so I go to heaven. What’s a little lie?”

  “It’s wrong.”

  El Jesus had rubbed his chin. “What’s worse, Padre? Lying about a sinner’s soul or making his good mother miserable because you won’t?”

  Samuel had considered that for a moment. He had looked at the tickets in his hand. El Jesus could tell he had been thinking that those bits of paper should be enough. The corporal had to sweeten the pot.

  “You do it, I’ll tell you where to find my top, too,” he said. Samuel’s eyes lit up at that.

  “Sergeant Mitch Hunter,” El Jesus said. “Best NCO I ever seen. Real hero material.”

  Samuel nodded and sighed. His shoulders sagged, and El Jesus knew he had him.

  “All right,” he said. “For humanity and the fate of the world.”

  Samuel placed a hand on El Jesus’s shoulder. “The responsibility for this sin lies within you, son.”

  El Jesus grinned, his eyes brimming with tears. “I think I can live that that, Padre, as long as Mami thinks I’m going to a better place than this shithole.”

  Samuel smiled at that. “For that, we’ll certainly pray.”

  Now Juba took advantage of the break in the conversation to slip in a question to Duval. “Who got yours?”

  “I have two children.”

  Juba raised his eyebrows at that. “You’re a little young.”

  “I started young.” She wasn’t going to say more about it, El Jesus could tell.

  “Mierda,” El Jesus said. He was impressed in an awful way.

  Juba ignored the big man. “What are their names?”

  Duval smiled at that. Like any proud parent, this was something she was happy to talk about. Mitch wondered if she’d given up being a soldier to become a mother. If so, would she be rusty? Or would fighting for her kids’ sake make her deadlier than ever?

  “Jack’s seven, and Constance is five,” she said. “Getting on the ship, you’d think they were going on a ride. They were so excited. End of the world.”

  She smiled, and El Jesus could feel the warmth in her from across the cabin’s aisle. For a moment no one said a word.

  Finally, Juba spoke, answering Duval’s question.

  “There’s this girl. I don’t know her name. She works at the Pearl, across from the barracks.” He grinned at the memory of her. “She’s got this walk. Pure Sin City. Eyes you drown in.”

  El Jesus could not believe what he’d heard. “You gave your ticket to a woman, and you didn’t even fuck her?”

  Juba winked at them all. “I said I didn’t know her name.”

  El Jesus laughed. “So you fucked her then!”

  It struck the corporal that Juba might be lying about the girl, but he didn’t care. If it was a good enough story, the truth of it didn’t bother him. It never had.

  32

  Michaels cursed to himself as they drew closer to Canaan. He’d been flying for so long that his ass had gone numb, but he was too close to the destination to put the ship on autopilot and go for a stretch. Instead, he tried stretching his legs in his seat. It was better than nothing.

  Hodge’s voice crackled over the intercom.

  “Another contact at three-four-three…This one’s closing.”

  Michaels peered out through the windshield but knew he wouldn’t be able to see the newcomer from there. He wasn’t ready to take evasive action quite yet, but this close to Canaan he wanted to be cautious.

  “Give them a heads-up,” he said.

  A moment later he heard Hodge speaking over the radio. The man kept his tone clean and controlled at all times. Michaels might have given Hodge hell every now and then, but the man made a damn fine copilot.

  “Attention Transport HMS Tango-Six, you are encroaching on a military vessel. Break off your current route, come around to your heading oh-three-eight, copy?”

  The only thing Michaels heard for a reply was blank static. Whoever was on that ship either couldn’t hear them or didn’t care to reply. He decided to try them with a more forceful tone.

  “HMS Tango-Six, come around to your heading oh-three-eight, do you copy?”

  His tone made it clear that this was not a request but an order. Still there was no response, and the airship kept straight on its heading toward them.

  Michaels tried to shake off the bad feeling he had about this. “Plumbers flying planes,” he said.

  He turned to Hunter, who was standing in the cockpit door, looking morose. He could understand why the man wanted to escape from the cabin—mercenaries made terrible talkers in his opinion—but it was time for him to go.

  “Strap in,” he told the sergeant, “I’m going to put her through some paces.”

  He gave Mitch a few seconds to hustle back to his seat and give the others the heads-up. Then he announced his actions over the intercom.

  “Changing course to two-eight-five.”

  “Two-eight-five, aye,” Hodge said. The man sounded like a hollow echo.

  Michaels brought the ship’s nose around toward the new heading, not bothering to be gentle about it. If the people in the back thought that little turn was rough, he was about to give them the shock of their lives.

  “Diving to fifty thousand feet.”

  “Fifty-angels, aye.”

  Michaels leaned forward on the wheel, hard. The ship lurched forward into a steep dive.

  Michaels suppressed a smile as anything not tied or held down in the cabin smacked against the ceiling. He wondered if the sick Imperial had managed to dispose of the contents of his helmet yet, but it was too late to care.

  The ship began to shake like she wanted to fall apart. The speed was more than she could bear, but Michaels didn’t plan to push her that hard for long. When he felt like the fillings might rattle out of his teeth, he pulled back on the wheel and leveled out. As he did, he allowed himself a quick smile.

  “That oughta to do it,” he said. If that hadn’t shaken their silent friends, something was seriously wrong.

  Hodge’s voice cracked as he spoke over the intercom. “They’re changing direction. They’re on an intercept course.”

  Michaels reached up to the cockpit’s ceiling and lowered an intricate scope that unfolded from its housing there. He peered through the magnifying lenses and let one piece of glass after another drop into place, focusing them on the fly. As he did, the civilian transport came into view and then grew bigger and bigger in his vision.

  It looked just like any of the dozens of other ships Michaels had seen rocketing into the sky over the past few days. If it hadn’t been coming about to charge straight at him like a drunk teenager bent on playing chicken, he would not have thought much about it.

  Michaels’s eyes grew wide. He barked an order at his copilot.

  “Take your stati
on.”

  Hodge balked at first, just as Michaels knew he would. “That’s a civilian ship—”

  Michaels didn’t have time to argue with the man about it. “Take your station!”

  Michael glanced back and saw Hodge climb a nearby ladder through a hatch in the ceiling that led into the ship’s weapons turret. A moment later he felt rather than heard the power-assisted gimbals on which the massive pair of recoilless rifles sat spring to life as Hodge took control of the gunner’s pod.

  Michaels checked the position of their attacker again, for that was what he now knew it to be. No one with benign intentions would point one ship at another like that. He spied it dead ahead. It seemed to glow in the sunlight, and it grew brighter as it came closer.

  “HMS Tango-Six,” Hodge said over the radio, “break off or you will be fired upon.” The horror showed in the man’s voice. This wasn’t something he wanted to do.

  Michaels decided he didn’t want to have to deal with the problem that way either. Far better to outfly the bastards than outgun them.

  “Hold on!” he shouted into the intercom as he prepared to put the airship through its paces.

  Inside the cabin, he knew the passengers had to be straining against their flight harnesses. He hoped they’d all managed to get themselves strapped in well or they were going to have a very painful flight. He couldn’t tell for sure, as enough loose equipment was rattling around the place to drown out anything else.

  Michaels swung the airship left, right, then left again, up and down a few times, and then came around to their original heading. He peered through his scope to see what fruit his efforts had borne.

  He saw the civilian transport right there in front of him, only closer than ever. It rode a rocket of flame straight for them.

  “Repeat,” Hodge said, his voice as shaky as the plane had been, “you will be fired upon.” Michaels could hear the ache of conscience in the man’s tone. “Tango-Six, do you copy? You must break off now.”

  Nothing came back over the radio. Michaels felt his heart start to pound and his palms begin to sweat. He was a good pilot—he knew that—but he’d not been involved in air combat for years, certainly not in a transport like this. His hands ached for the controls of a Capitol fighter, not this damned pleasure boat.

  Hodge begged the other ship to stop. “Tango-Six, break off, break off, break off!”

  Michaels swept left, right, up, down. The transport out there kept matching his moves. There was no way he could shake her without ripping Constantine’s ship apart. He wondered if he should give it a try anyhow, but then the proximity alarms went off.

  The sirens told the passengers what Michaels and Hodge already knew: They were in serious trouble. Some of the soldiers in the back started to panic, but most of them held steady. The veterans had to have seen worse before—or at least thought they had. No one, including Michaels, knew just what they were up against.

  “Fire!” Michaels shouted at Hodge. “Fire the guns!”

  Hodge had signed on as Michaels’s copilot because he’d suffered shell shock in the Imperial Defense Forces. He had not fired a weapon since leaving the military, which perhaps made him a poor choice as the ship’s gunner. Maybe Michaels should have sent Hunter or one of the other soldiers into the turret, someone with less compunction about possibly killing a ship full of innocents.

  “Break off, break off!” Hodges said. Don’t make me do this, his tone cried.

  They had no time left. The transport was right there, and she was going to hit them. The only chance they had was to blow her from the sky. Michaels twisted the wheel in a vain attempt to slip his ship out of the way, but he knew it would never work.

  “Fire!” he said.

  Hodge yelled into the intercom and pulled the trigger on his weapon. The twin recoilless rifles spat fire, alternating their attacks at the target.

  The civilian transport sailed past them then, just missing them. Michaels glanced down at his radar screen, a red disk on which a pair of thin brass arms moved a brass marker. He’d heard of electronic screens being used in ancient times, but such things hadn’t worked in centuries. Only the Cardinal knew why, he supposed.

  He saw the transport coming around for another pass and angled the ship so that Hodge would have a clear shot at her. The sky outside spun madly as Michaels tried to make the ship move in ways she had never been built to move. They wound out of it with the ship half in the clouds, which swirled around them in white and gray.

  Hodge let loose at the transport with another barrage of lead, but it went wide again. Perhaps some of it found the transport’s tail, but if so it didn’t slow the craft down.

  Michaels glanced down at the radar screen again, but the marker wasn’t there anymore. He tapped the display, but the little brass ball did not come back. It was as if the transport had disappeared.

  Had Hodge downed her? Michaels doubted it. He refused to let hope rise within him.

  “Captain,” Hodge’s voice said, “I’ve lost them!”

  Michaels heard the gimbals spinning around over his head as Hodge searched the skies for the transport. The copilot’s labored breath filtered through the intercom as he hunted for his prey.

  Michaels wondered who was hunting whom. He looked forward just in time to see the civilian transport emerge from the clouds right there in front of him.

  The last thing Michaels saw—in the blink of an eye, right before the impact—was a blood-drenched mutant sitting at the transport’s controls.

  He couldn’t tell for sure, but he’d be damned if it didn’t look like the thing was laughing.

  33

  Mitch had been through a lot of rough rides in the Capitol Ground Forces but never anything like this. The ship had bounced through the sky like a yo-yo on a string, the sirens deafening everyone aboard, and then had pitched and yawed so hard that he could barely tell which way was down.

  The impact had shaken every person in the plane to the bone. Then everything became strangely quiet for a moment. The sirens stopped, and the ship’s engines ceased working. For a split second, the plane seemed to hang in the air like a mortar shell at the top of its arc.

  Then, just like a shell, it came plummeting down.

  A hole had appeared in the cabin ceiling right where Hodge’s turret used to be. It was gone now, and Hodge along with it. The cabin depressurized through the ragged gap, the horrible wind sucking out everything that wasn’t bolted to the floor.

  In the engine compartment—which sat on the top of the ship, just behind the gunner’s pod—one of the boilers burst open and spilled into the passenger compartment below. Boiling coal tar burst onto the men seated near the plane’s tail. Four soldiers—two from Bauhaus and two from Imperial—were caught in the lethal mess, their bodies incinerated before they could scream. Mitch realized then that he’d never even gotten their names.

  The river of boiling tar tore off the tail of the plane and pulled the dead men out into the open air along with it. MacGuire began to unbuckle his harness and shouted at the others over the unbelievable roar of the icy wind. He pointed to a hatch in the floor near what was now the back of the ship.

  “Get to the escape pod!” the Imperial yelled.

  Mitch was sitting right next to him and could barely hear him. Still, he had to admire the man’s leadership. He’d just lost two of his men. He could have just raced for the pod and left the others to figure out what he was doing and then follow as they were able. Instead, he instantly shoved aside his grief, took charge, and worked to save everyone he could.

  “What?” Duval asked.

  Mitch wondered if she’d been injured in the crash. If so, more than her hearing must have been affected. Any properly trained soldier knew what to do in an emergency at this height. They had scant minutes before the burning hulk would reach the ground, but that was enough time to get the hell out of it if they moved fast.

  “Escape! Pod!” MacGuire stabbed toward the rear of the cabin, punctuating
each word.

  Mitch wondered if Duval didn’t know about the escape pod. It wasn’t standard issue on every ship, but he’d recognized the shape of it from the outside as they’d boarded the craft.

  The time for thinking had passed. He had to move fast or die.

  Mitch waited for El Jesus to get moving in front of him, then released his harness and half walked, half crawled after the big man down the aisle of the wrecked ship. The others did the same, falling into line as soon as they could.

  Every foot along the aisle felt like a mile. Inertia shoved Mitch toward the ceiling, making it hard to get any traction on anything. As he got farther along, though, air screaming past the missing tail section yanked him toward the back of the plane, in the direction of the escape pod.

  Steiner had been sitting next to the men who’d been burned to death by the burst boiler. His face and hands were still red from his own close shave with the steam and tar. He reached the escape pod’s hatch first and managed to wrench it open. After that, he tumbled half inside and held the door open for the next soldier to come along.

  Duval dragged herself into the pod next, and Juba slipped in right behind her. El Jesus yanked himself over the hatch’s lip, and Mitch fell in straight after.

  Mitch looked back to see Severian hauling Brother Samuel along after her, his precious book clutched under his free arm. He was shaking his head and shouting at her, but she couldn’t hear him over the noise.

  Mitch reached out and helped pull Samuel the last few feet toward the hatch. As the monk fell into the pod, he could finally be heard.

  “The bomb!”

  El Jesus, who’d been sitting atop the thing, pounded a fist against the pod’s shell. “Fuck!”

  Samuel ignored him and shouted at Severian. “Get the bomb!”

  Severian nodded, then raced back toward El Jesus’s seat. The spinning craft buffeted her about like a leaf in a storm, but she moved like a dancer through the chaos.

  Mitch wondered how close the ground was now. Then he decided he didn’t want to think about it.

  Severian yanked the red velvet sack from beneath El Jesus’s seat. It had been too well secured to be torn free during the cabin’s depressurization.