by Andy Remic
The junk, atop him, smiled down, tiny triangle metal teeth grinding together. Keenan watched the blood flow stop from the gunshot wound in its head. He swallowed, hard.
“Last chance, Keenan.” The junk removed gloves. Its hands were minced flesh, sporting holes and gradual degradation. Keenan could see tendons operating through rotting gaps.
“OK.” Keenan breathed heavily. He knew that to tell them would be instant death. He had to buy time. But how? And how did he kill these... creatures? Bullets were ineffective.
The junk gestured to his comrade, the one Keenan had shot in the throat. Blood glistened slick on skin and armour. It passed the commander an MPK and the barrel came to rest against Keenan’s chin. The junk leaned close. The aroma of toxic flesh invaded Keenan’s senses.
“Last time. Where is it?”
“I have a safe store. In the woods.”
“For weapons?”
Keenan gave a nod.
“You will take us there.”
The junk stood, dragged Keenan to his feet and put the MPK in his back. It pushed him out onto the veranda, towards rough-wood steps which led down to a gravel path. Keenan walked, sunlight dazzling him, the five diseased creatures following close and glancing nervously about. Distantly, more choppers howled. Keenan’s nose twitched. He could smell burning. They were burning the city.
“What do you want here?”
“Walk.”
“Why invade Galhari? We are a peaceful planet!”
“By the time QGM discover our little party, there will be nothing left to salvage. Now do as you’re told, Combat K man, and retrieve the disk if you want to live.”
“Down here,” he said, moving across the sweeping gravel drive which ended at a fence by a small stand of dense rayga woodland. A narrow disused path veered right through the swathe of angular, gnarled trees with sparse orange leaves, and meandered down through the woods to the mouth of the ocean. Keenan climbed over the fence, glanced back. Sweat stung his eyes. Distantly, he could hear the roar of heavy machine guns, muffled, as if by fog. Keenan glanced right. He could see the junks’ groundcar parked to one side, a battered all-terrain GWZ with blacked windows and six wheels. The junks followed him over the fence, covering him with automatic weapons. They knew: no man could outrun five machine guns.
Suddenly, Keenan’s hackles raised. This didn’t feel like him leading the group; it felt like an execution squad, taking him into the woods to die. A coldness descended on his soul. His mouth was barren, heart thundering in his ears.
Think. Think.
The group were swallowed by the cool silence of the rayga. Even the distant guns vanished as the packed trees absorbed noise. They strode over springy green moss until Keenan halted, and stooping, took hold of a large iron hoop. With a grunt he heaved and a large section of dulled alloy lifted on smooth hydraulics with a rain of soil. The group stared down at a second alloy panel.
“Open it.”
The commander prodded Keenan unnecessarily, and he knelt, keying in a code. The panel slid to one side revealing a steep alloy ramp. Lights flickered into life one by one. A smell of cold air rushed out.
“Wait here,” said the commander. He glanced at Keenan, and gave a smile full of nasty metal teeth. “On second thoughts, you go first. It might be booby-trapped.”
“You got me there.” Keenan stepped onto the ramp, striding down into gloom. The commander followed, and then the four remaining junks. The one with the hole in his throat left a trail of blood droplets sizzling on the moss like a chemical pestilence.
Swiftly, they were swallowed by the pit.
~ * ~
Cam’s heart sang with joy. Going home! I’m going home! It had been a gruelling month of upgrades under the watchful eye of Gunnery Sergeant Reznor. The training had constituted many different factors; from database uploads, technical and logistical testing, a physical replacement of bandwidth transmitters which was tantamount to torture and digital abuse, and day after day of physical and mental combat tests. Seven of the thirty withdrew after only a few days, much to the jeering of Gunnery Sergeant Reznor. The ruffled, indignant PopBots said they would put in official complaints, to which Reznor snarled, “Go on then, sod off and tick your little fucking boxes.” He was obviously no fan of bureaucracy. However, Cam was proud to admit that he made it to the end of Upgrade Training, along with twelve others, including Private Pyle, the ‘maggot’.
Now, as the Shuttle docked and Cam found himself bobbing through immigration where his chip was stamped and he paid his ‘entry visa’ of ten gem-dollars, much to his chagrin, he floated into the relaxation suite of Dekkan Tell’s Shuttle Docks and spun, looking for Keenan.
Strange. Keenan had said he would meet Cam.
Unless—the Jataxa had kicked in again.
Annoyed now, but feeling a touch on edge, the small black ball bobbed along and out into the sunshine—as behind, machine guns screamed and a flood of junks swarmed the Shuttle Docks with guns yammering, bullets scything people like wheat and cutting them down in bright showers of blood and flesh cubes.
Cam jumped, shocked. His scanner slammed across the entire planet of Galhari. He saw the invasion force. Gave a digital gulp. It was big. Far bigger than a tiny, poorly defended planet like Galhari had a right to demand. And Cam sensed... orbital stacks blocking incoming and outgoing signals of all kinds. The junks had isolated Galhari. Cam had just squeezed in before the Big Sleep.
Cam cruised past a stream of black armoured military vehicles, which opened fire on him making him curse and accelerate at a phenomenal rate as bullets pinged from his shell. As air rushed by, Cam could smell the familiar aromas of home... mixed with fire, and hot metal, slaughter, and the pervading invading stench of the junks.
Cam approached Keenan’s house warily, after again passing convoys of black armoured infantry carriers. He halted, hovering, spinning, lights blinking on his shell. Cam’s sensors immediately picked out hot oil. So then... Keenan had been out on the bike? Then he detected cordite and the little Pop-Bot’s sensors quickened.
Cam stopped dead. He orientated.
Scanned. Triple scanned.
With all his senses on full-scream, he remembered the words of Gunnery Sergeant Reznor. He had to be strong. Proud. Have courage in the face of adversity... even if that adversity was ten million invading junks...
Cam prepared for Battle.
He slowed his speed and kicked an adrenalin charge up to full. He eased into Keenan’s house and there the stench of the junks was abominable. A reek so foul if Cam could have puked, he would have done so. He spun slowly through various rooms, audio-detection modules clicking in his metal case. There. There...
Cam shot from the house, straight through the wall, and towards the woods and the old stores Keenan kept for emergency situations. As he approached, buzzing with velocity, there came a high pitched shrilling scream and smoke belched from the opening in the forest floor. Suddenly a figure emerged, sprinting; it was aflame, huge billowing tongues of green and yellow leaping from clothing and face and armour. The junk was squealing and keening, sprinted straight at Cam—who settled into a grim spin and punched with vicious violence through the junk’s chest, removing its heart with tiny snippers, to emerge from its flaming back holding the pumping, slick grey organ. The junk collapsed, dead and smouldering on the mossy path, and Cam sped to the opening and dropped into the confined chamber...
All was a confusion of flames and thrashing. The junks were attacking one another, trying to find Keenan, trying to kill Keenan. Cam scanned, then moved to the bomb screen and floated behind it. In the darkness, in their agony as they burned, the junks seemed almost blind.
“Nice of you to show up,” snapped Keenan. His face was streaked with black, and Cam could see the man was struggling to breathe. Cam glanced down at the industrial flamethrower Keenan carried in battered, sliced hands.
“Looks like you didn’t need me,” said Cam.
“Be a good lad and put
them out of their misery. Even junk scum deserve a better end than burning in oblivion.”
“I’m not sure about that,” said Cam, but emerged from behind the bomb screen and efficiently silenced the remaining junks. Using manipulators, Cam piled the bodies in the corner and watched as Keenan appeared and strode up the ramp, out into the fresh, free air.
He sat in the grass, coughing, then lit a cigarette.
“A little foolish?” suggested Cam.
“I just faced five of the toughest killers I ever encountered. Even a bullet to the head doesn’t slow them down. I deserve a little hedonism, my metal friend.”
Distantly, out to sea, a heavy engine droned. Dark junk boats sped across the waves, heading for the city docks. Keenan inhaled with shaking fingers, then glanced off through the trees. The sea sparkled.
“You did well,” said Cam softly. “What happened?”
“I was out on the bike. Three attacked me, chased me into the quarry. I killed them, and took one of their SinScripts. I read somewhere, years back, that it carries their instructions and can be used to decode what the semi-sentient bastards are up to.”
“You still have it?”
“Yes.”
“You are right. It carries their instructions. Like a drug, it injects their codes straight to the heart.”
“Insane,” said Keenan.
“It’s how they work,” said Cam. “They’re like programmable machines. They were on a mission.” Cam lifted into the sky. “All ten million of them are on a mission.”
Keenan tilted his head. An engine noise out to sea was growing close, at speed. “Shit.” He climbed to his feet, checked his Techrim. “You fit to fight after all these upgrades?”
“Aye!” said Cam, “I am a new and improved model! I have been upgraded! I am now a GradeA+1 Security Mechanism with advanced SynthAI and a Machine Intelligence Rating (MIR) of 3450. I have integral weapon inserts, a quad-core military database, and Put Down™ War Technology. I’m a pretty damn hot cookie!”
“Well, you might just get the chance to use all that.” Keenan’s voice was a low growl. He ground his cigarette under his boot. “Look out there.”
Through the dense smash of trees they could make out the bulk of a Styx Fast Attack Boat, or S-FAB. It could carry a hundred soldiers, and Keenan and Cam heard the clash of ramp in water as it ground up the shingle. Dark figures moved in the hold.
“Time to move,” said Keenan. “We need to get off this planet. Warn Quad-Gal Military. Steinhauer will know what to do.”
“Your old General? I thought you hated him.”
“Oh yes. But I trust him. Listen, check all local and global transmission stations; see if you can find anything from before the junk lock-down.”
“OK boss.”
Keenan glanced behind; the Styx was disgorging its payload. He sprinted for the KTM LC12 and climbed on, firing the engine to thump viciously.
The junks came, flooding through the woods, hundreds of lithe, pitted figures in black body armour carrying short sub-machine guns and long Thump Rifles. The seething mass made Keenan blink; like an army of insects they filled his vision and only when the first opened fire, and a hail of automatic gunfire slammed across the clearing, was Keenan kicked into action. He slammed the throttle open, front brake locked, spun the KTM in a tight circle spitting gravel and shot up the track with Cam buzzing close beside him, the tiny PopBot’s pacing immaculate. Bullets chased them, and Keenan risked a glance back. The junks had formed a tight phalanx beside his house, halted, and simply stood watching in stoic silence.
“Head left,” said Cam. “Away from Dekkan Tell.”
Keenan slammed onto the road and was nearly mown down by an armoured truck. Tyres squealing, he veered into a ditch and, standing the bike, powered up a hill and halted. The road to Dekkan Tell was filled with armoured vehicles—SlamTruks, infantry carriers, even some K-16 tanks. All matt black. And all peopled by junks.
“Cam? When you said ten million junks a few minutes ago, was that just an idle, random figure?”
“No. My sensors indicate this is the scale of the invasion force.”
“I thought they were extinct,” said Keenan, voice lost in awe.
“So did I.”
Keenan stared off, shading his eyes. He saw the fires burning through the beautiful city of Dekkan Tell. Distant gunfire echoed, a rolling scourge. Smoke blanketed the underside of the sky like a parasite.
“Galhari has fallen, my friend.”
Keenan nodded, lips tight.
Bullets whined overhead. A squad of junks were sprinting up the rocky slope towards Keenan and the burbling bike; again, he revved the vehicle and hammered free, heading down narrow trails into the hills. Behind, more bullets whined, along with the slow and heavy thwack of Thump Rifles. Keenan shook his head in disbelief. The bastards. Galhari was a quiet and peaceful planet; it was no threat to anybody, and had remained neutral during the Helix War. Galhari sported a tiny, local army, and had no natural wealth or resources of any real worth. Tactically, it spun on the fringes of Quad-Gal and was a technically useless staging post. To all intents and purposes, it really wasn’t worth the trouble to invade. So why invade?
“The bastards,” he muttered, eyes dark. He was overcome with a need to blast into the city, to kill as many of the invaders as possible. As he sat there, he knew people were dying, screaming with hot metal in their brains and hearts.
“No,” said Cam, reading the man. “No.”
Keenan nodded, and said nothing. His bitterness was tangible. He rode for an hour, away from Galhari civilisation; out into the bush. Occasionally, Cam picked up resonance from a flyer; but after a while even they vanished. The junks were concentrating on urban areas and military outposts.
Galhari, as a planet, was mostly uninhabited; a barren rolling expanse of mountains and hills, forests and lakes. It was deserted when compared to a heaving metropolis like The City. Quiet. Peaceful. That’s why Keenan had chosen it to hide.
Finally, Keenan halted at the foot of a looming mountain, and hid the bike in a circle of rocks, camming it up with branches knife-cut from Splay Ferns. He considered building a fire, but shook his head in the negative. They might have to move again—fast. There was no point drawing attention to themselves.
Cam zipped off to check the local perimeter, and returned after twenty minutes, satisfied, to find Keenan sat on a rock, back straight, Techrim in his fist, face filled with thunder-storm.
“The Galhari government has fallen,” said Cam, quietly. “They have issued a statement that all rogue army units should give themselves up. The junks are too formidable. President Taeoto has called for an end to violence. He said there has been enough killing for one day. All Galhari military must surrender arms.”
“What, and be slaughtered? These bastards follow no codes of justice or honour.” Keenan sighed. “Once the Peace Unification Army get a wind of this, Quad-Gal will rain down hell. You can’t invade planets and expect no consequence. What the hell do they want? I thought we lived in a civilised age.”
“Civilised?” Cam paused. His lights flickered in what Keenan knew was a smile. “There is no such thing, my friend. Civilisation is a Utopia dreamed up by your warped species.”
Keenan grunted.
“Anyway, this game is bigger than Galhari, Keenan.”
“What do you think they want?”
“I truly have no idea.” Cam buzzed into silence, his lights black. He spun closer to Keenan, who rubbed at his weary, blackened face and yawned, exhaustion finally kicking him in the spine.
“Get some sleep,” said Cam. “I’ll keep scanning, see what I can discover. I’ll try to locate and contact Steinhauer. The sooner QGM know about this debacle the better.”
“Can you decode the junk’s SinScript?”
“I will apply my considerable talent.”
“Wake me if there’s trouble.”
“You won’t need me for that,” said Cam.
~ * ~<
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Night fell. Keenan slept fitfully between the rocks.
He dreamt of his dead wife.
He dreamt of his dead girls.
And he dreamt of... Pippa. Combat K. Soldier. Killer. His ex-lover... And he spiralled down to Molkrush Fed. After the crash. Abandoned by the military... and it was real, in his mind, in his hands, in his soul... and he was there, on the beach, on a different world, in a different age, prostrate before flickering flames...
Red firelight danced over his face, glowing.
Wood crackled, warped, blackened, twisted, and the twisted limbs reached out for him. He’d shivered, then, wondering if he would ever see his little girls; wondering if he would die there on that empty planet with only Pippa for company...