by Andy Remic
"Hmm." Keenan rubbed his stubble, as around him the SLAM hummed. Built for speed, it was far from a refined cruise. It would have them in orbit around Sick World in thirty-six hours, arcing past and detaching its three DropShip cargo which, in turn, would separate and head down to the planet's surface.
"It's an easy mission," said Cam. "We head in, search the surroundings, take samples of soil, rock, minerals, that sort of shit. There have been a few ancient edifices flagged up for exploration; we prove the junks had nothing to do with Sick World then we hot-tail it out of there." Cam seemed to beam, which was hard to understand, being a small, alloy PopBot with no discernible features. "What can go wrong?"
"I don't buy it. Nothing in life is that easy."
A door slid open, and Pippa emerged. She looked annoyed as she slumped into the Comfort Bay's SquashCouch.
"You OK?"
"No. Betezh and Olga are at each other's throats. He keeps calling her a whale of blubber, she keeps calling him Frankenstein's Reject. They're doing my damn head in, Keenan. And to top it all, I've had Franco sniffing around me again. You'd think he would have learned his bloody lesson!"
The door slid open, and Franco sidled in, peering at his back-trail with obvious suspicion, like a spy being followed. He saw his Combat-K comrades, straightened, and smiled a beaming smile. The door hissed shut.
"Hi!"
"You OK, Franco? You look a bit twitchy?"
The SLAM rocked violently, engines screaming, and settled down gradually. Outside, rocks bounced from the hull and shattered into billions of fragments.
"Damn that pilot!"
"There isn't one," snorted Pippa. "The SLAM's automated! Weren't you paying attention at the briefing?"
"Yeah! Of course!" He snorted in derision. "They don't call me Franco 'Academic Arse' Haggis for nothing, you know! Every little detail has been sucked in, stored and precisely filed in the nanomodular computational memory bank that is my brain." He grinned. "Anyone for a sausage?" He moved towards the InfinityChef[tm].
"'Memory bank'," mocked Pippa. "Yeah, about 1K, I reckon." She watched Franco extract a long greasy sausage from the alloy machine, slap it on a plate, and smother it in fiery horseradish sauce. "Franco, even for you, that looks disgusting."
"I'm a growing lad."
"You'll end up looking like Olga!"
"Nothing wrong with meat on a lass," said Franco, taking a huge slimy bite. As he chewed, he eyed Pippa thoughtfully. "Hey, would you..."
"No."
"But you don't know what I was going to say!"
"The answer's still no."
"Hrmph."
"The answer's still no, dickhead."
Franco chewed for a while. Then said, quickly, as if afraid she might cut him off, "I was only going to ask if you wanted a chew on my sausage." He grinned. Cubes of fat were caught between his teeth.
"You're just utterly revolting."
"I try my best."
"Listen," said Keenan, "when you two lovebirds have finished the banter, are you both happy with your squads?"
"No," said Pippa.
"Yes!" beamed Franco. "Never before have I seen such healthy vibrant vixens!"
"I meant in a militaristic context," said Keenan.
"So did I." Franco winked.
"We touch down in thirty-six hours. How did the Upgrades go?"
"Good," said Pippa. "We all had Pearl comms implanted in our earlobes. Franco went for some extras, though."
"Extras?" Keenan raised his eyebrows. "What you been up to, Franco?"
Franco looked suddenly shifty. "Nuffink."
"What do you mean 'Nuffink'? I need to know how you're tooled. If you had one of those crazy-arse heart-neutronium bombs implanted, you could jeopardise the entire mission. So come on, spill the beans."
Franco stuck out his lower lip. "It was supposed to be a surprise!" He glared at Pippa. "Until a certain person went flapping her big flapping lips. OK, I had my wisdom teeth done."
"And that means?"
"They're WiTs," said Pippa, slumping down with a coffee and rolling her neck to ease tension. "Dickhead over there had three of his teeth replaced with WiTs - tiny removable bombs. I'm sure only a lunatic would have bombs implanted in his fucking head."
"Hey!" snapped Franco. "Less of the implanted. They're a temporary fixation. I also had EZooms."
"The digital eyeball zoom enhancers?"
"Yar," said Franco, chewing.
"I fancied those myself, until I saw what the micro-surgery entailed. Scalpels inside your eyeballs? I think I'll stick with my own Nature-made units, thanks. Go on mate, what else? False pectorals? A penis enlargement? Some kind of bowel sluice?"
"No-oooo." It was the way he said it. Keenan and Pippa exchanged a glance.
"Spill it," said Pippa.
"Well, I wouldn't like to say..."
"We need to know," growled Keenan. "Any more implied insanity you inadvertently add to a mission, well, hell, we need to know about it. Yeah?"
"OK. I, um, I had a Temple Pill. Injected." He grinned.
"A Temple Pill? You mean one of those crazy damn onboard religious nutters? Helps you find enlightenment? Or so the marketing shit goes, anyway. Franco, no way is that sort of cheap Jaiwanese crap available from Quad-Gal military. It's outlawed. It's fucking dangerous, mate."
"Can you remove it?" said Pippa.
Franco shook his head. "Not here. Not now. Well, not without a big scalpel..."
"Tempting," mused Keenan.
"Where did they inject it?" said Pippa, sipping her coffee.
"Where else?" said Franco. He tapped the side of his head. "In my temple."
"Oh, ho ho," said Pippa. "Religious nutters with a sense of humour. How droll."
"It's the best place from which Father Callaghan can communicate. It's a place that has, shall we say, soul."
"Father Callaghan?" Pippa nearly choked on her coffee. "Franco, mate, you're insane enough without a bloody religious implant. You're a certifiable dick. And talking of dicks, have you shook off that dumb dog yet? It keeps pissing in the corridors. Surely a machine shouldn't do that? Well, it damn well stinks."
"Ha! Sax is a robot! It can't piss!"
Cam made a buzzing sound of annoyance. "Franco, that would be the DumbMutt's supposed air freshener."
"An air freshener?" said Keenan, reclining and pulling free his Techrim. He started to clean and oil the weapon. "Why the hell would a robot dog want an air freshener?"
"To freshen the place up," said Franco. "Obviously."
"Obviously my arse," snapped Pippa.
"Interesting you should say that," said Cam, green lights flickering on his battered black casing. "It's actually called an Actuating Rear-tube Sphincter Ejection-unit. The DumbMutt is supposed to be a house-pet for bored househusbands. It's supposed to, you know," Cam coughed a metallic cough, "help with the housework."
Keenan barked a laugh. "An Actuating Rear-tube... you mean his ARSE? Very amusing. Only Franco could buy himself a robot with an ARSE."
"Hey, I didn't buy it. Him. It. Sax. He was a gift."
"From the alien? For robbing your wallet?"
Pippa stared hard at Franco. "Franco, how does your life get so complicated?"
"I'm just a victim of circumstance," said Franco in a small voice, and having finished his sausage, headed for the sliding hatch. "I'm off to check on my vixens. I left them lubing their weapons and checking out their collection of g-string camouflage gear."
"Are you serious?" said Pippa.
"I'm always damn serious!" snapped Franco.
"I want you back here in an hour, with your squad," said Keenan, eyes steely, jaw a grim line. "The time for games is over. We've got a mission, and I want it pulling off smoothly. God only knows what we'll find down there."
"Ach!" said Franco. "This is a piss gig, man. We'll cruise in, doss and toss about, then cruise out again. No drama. No aggro. Sweet as a honeycake. Succulent as a pussy." He smiled, showing his missing
tooth. Or tuff, as he called it.
"I'll believe that when I see it," growled Keenan, voice low.
"You should be more like me!" beamed Franco. "The world's a much happier place." He stepped through the hatch and, licking sausage grease from his beard, went indeed to check on his squad. And, in the narrow, alloy corridor, a voice in his head said, "Don't you worry none, my Son. They could never understand your internal complexity."
"That's all right, Father Callaghan. They're good friends really. I'm not upset, not at all." His eyes gleamed, as he pictured vixens oiling oily thighs. He was sure Candy, Fizzy and Shazza would be getting down to the real interesting bits soon...
"Well I'm glad about that, my Son. The road to Enlightenment is up a steep and winding hill. You will have to suffer all manner of rocks and sharp objects thrown - nay! hurled - at you, and they shall be, and yet you may never reach the summit of your steep and manful climb! But it is the journey to Enlightenment that will fill your heart with joy, my Son, as you suffer the impurity of Eternal Pain and Suffering, and Struggling, and Agony. Amen."
"Amen," mumbled Franco, miserably.
They sat around the table of the Ship Lounge, staring at one another and sipping coffee and battlestim juice - an energy drink endorsed by QGM Military EnergyDrinks[tm]. Keenan entered, and cast a slow pan across the group, assessing each individual and wondering who he could trust. First there was his own team. Snake was reclining on the rear two legs of his chair, one leg folded over the opposite knee as he rooted in the tracks of his army boot with a fork, prizing free something solid and black. He glanced up at Keenan, his one good eye appraising the squad leader. Snake smiled, and it was not a very nice smile. Still, thought Keenan, Snake's official QGM report was good. Exceptional, even. He was certainly an efficient man in a fire-fight, and had pulled off a number of missions solo; a manner which Keenan himself preferred. If you went in alone, it was safe - because everybody was the enemy... and it made targeting that much easier.
Ed and Maximux were sat close, in quiet conversation, hunched over steaming coffee mugs. Both had shifty eyes and glanced up, watching Keenan warily. Keenan turned, observing a low-key growling argument between Olga and Betezh, his eyes taking in Olga's huge spade-shaped hands and their clenching and unclenching knuckles. Keenan smiled inside; Betezh better be careful, or he was going to get his head kicked in.
Mel sat at the far end of the table, a deviant apart, her small black eyes staring at the ceiling. Occasionally she shifted, and her natural pus-creamed armour crackled. Pippa met Keenan's gaze and gave him an uncertain smile.
Finally, Keenan watched the body language of Franco's squad. Fizzy and Shazza were sat, bodies turned slightly away from an excited and over-eager Franco, who was showing them how to strip down a Kekra quad-barrel machine pistol and oil the important parts. His hands glistened with gun-oil. Candy had been pulled by Steinhauer at the last moment for a separate Combat-K infil, to make space for Miller accompanying the outfit. This suited Keenan fine. The fewer women to distract Franco from the job in hand, the better. Indeed, the fewer people who accompanied Combat K, the better. He couldn't help but feel he'd been lumbered with a party bucket of idiots.
"OK," said Keenan, moving to the head of the table. All eyes turned on him. "You all know why we're here. We have five days on Sick World to try and find evidence of the junks; nothing, however, points to this being their home-world, so I want three discrete slick missions; in, analysis, rendezvous, then we'll get the fuck out and reconvene at a central location I've sent to your PADs. Everybody got that?"
The squads nodded, and Snake lit a cigarette, his cold blue eye regarding Keenan with intellect.
"Each squad member has been assigned a Permatex electronic WarSuit, except for Olga and Mel, who have Permatex WarPanels in the hold. We've all got digitally linked RealTime Tuff-Maps[tm] which will show every squad member and their location. You've also been given tins of mini RollerMines which are good for booby-trapping an area and carry electronic signatures linked to QGM forces and your individual spinal implants. Each DropShip has three InfinityChefs, SleepCells, and comes equipped with an off-road 6X6 Armoured Giga-Buggy and four KTM Dirt-Spaz motocross bikes, for reaching those inaccessible places." He smiled. "Any questions?"
"When do we get paid?" said Snake, and blew a plume of smoke.
"When the job's done," said Keenan, without blinking.
"Any bonus for finding evidence of these bastard junks?"
"No."
Snake shrugged, his eye never leaving Keenan. Keenan held the glittering gaze for a few moments, then glanced over at Franco's Angels. "You OK, ladies? I mean, having been stiffed with a certified insane pervert as your squad leader?"
"We're used to it, Keenan," smiled Fizzy, the fiery redhead. Her eyes flashed like diamonds. "And trust me, we have ways of dealing with miscreants."
"I object," said Franco, haughtily, "to being spoken about as if I'm not in the room."
"Franco, when you've had a rainbow pill, you really aren't in the room."
"Acknowledged, but that was a long time ago, when I was," he twitched, "a guest in the pleasure hotel known as Mount Pleasant." He scowled at Betezh, but the scarred ex-Combat K man didn't take him on. Franco hoisted a perfectly functioning Kekra. "Anyway. I'm a lot better now." He stared longingly at Fizzy's robust breasts, pert above the line of her WarSuit.
What seemed many moons ago, Franco had been incarcerated at The Mount Pleasant Hilltop Institution, the "nice and caring and friendly home for the mentally challenged" under the watchful supervision of a certain Dr Betezh... but that had been over a year ago, now. Betezh had been an implant from a powerful politician, put in place to keep tabs on Franco during his time there. Betezh was an ex-spook, QGM secret service, and in an act of revenge Franco, once he'd escaped Mount Pleasant and the tables had been turned, repaid Betezh's former electrical torture by stapling the man's face with an industrial bone stapler. It had all become a bit of a mess, but they laughed about it now. Sometimes. When they were drunk.
Keenan checked his watch, and lifted his PAD. "OK. Let's synchronise our systems. I'm sending a signal in three, two, one..."
They spent ten minutes checking PADs and earlobe communications, all the while Franco muttering and moaning about the indignity of wearing pretty earrings. When they were done, Keenan watched them filing from the room until only he, Franco and Pippa were left.
"Pippa?"
"Yeah, boss?"
"Keep an eye on Olga and Betezh. There was friction there." Olga and Betezh had a history of argument, from their tense time together down on the decimated world of The City during the outbreak of Biohell.
"I noticed," said Pippa, smiling softly, but without humour. "Hey, have you noticed the way Snake watches you?"
"Indeed."
"You gonna be OK?"
Keenan stared at Pippa, at her beautiful oval face, pure white skin, her neat, bobbed hair. God, he thought, you are so beautiful. But you are the murderer of my family. How can you stand there before me, breathing, smiling, looking so fucking casual?
He took a deep breath, his hate a distant, glowing ember, just waiting for the right injection of oxygen to re-ignite. Keenan ground his teeth. No. There were wider, more important issues at stake. Like saving millions of people from the expanding and invading junk armies.
His petty, minor, pathetic personal revenge would come later.
Much later.
"I'll be just fine," he breathed.
Franco ambled out, fiddling with his Kekra and leaving Keenan alone with Pippa. She moved to him, cat-like, graceful, and stopped, close, and he could smell her natural perfume, the aroma of the woman he had once loved. And hell, he thought. Say it. He still loved her. She was a narcotic, permanent, running through his veins. He would never be free of Pippa's addiction.
"Can I ask you a question?" she said.
"Ask away."
"If we weren't locked together, in this squad, in this mission,
and," she gave a sardonic smile, "by spinal logic-cubes that would detonate our spines if we dared to go against one another... damn Quad-Gal Military's sense of humour, right?"
"Yeah?"
"If things were different, would you still try to kill me?"
Keenan moved closer. They were inches apart.
"Yes," he said.
Pippa's eyes closed, long lashes dark against pale translucent skin. They opened. Her grey eyes stared up into Keenan's. She licked her lips, leaned forward, and kissed him gently. For a long moment he allowed the kiss, then pulled back.
"I cannot."
"Nor I."
He stared at her. "I... cannot forgive. I am not a great enough man."
"I still love you, Keenan."
Keenan turned, and strode from the Ship Lounge.
Franco closed the door of his SleepCell and sat on his bed. It was a narrow alloy affair, with crumpled covers and a blue alloy headboard. Franco glanced around despite the room being only eight feet by six and, happy he was alone, reached behind the headboard and pulled free a small, crumpled sheet of paper. It was thin, flimsy, not like the RealTime Tuff-MapsTM used by the squaddies. With trembling fingers Franco unrolled the parchment on his bed, and stared at the rough outlines of the three continents of Sick World.
Franco grinned to himself, finger drawing a line which traced a jittery trail across the map. Franco double-tapped the flimsy material and organo-paper hummed and zoomed in. Again he tapped, and again it zoomed... until it registered a building, and within, a marker.
"Treasure," muttered Franco, his eyes wide, mouth open, lips wet. If nothing else, he thought, I'm going to come away from this lame mission a rich man! Soil analysis? Pah! Rock gathering? Pah! Searching ancient ruins? Humbug! Why couldn't QGM find me a real damn mission? Shooting things! Or, more importantly - his eyes gleamed - blowing things up!
It had to be said, Franco was an expert with explosions, detonations, and indeed any form of high-powered violent particle acceleration. His main job before Combat-K had been that of demolitions expert in quarrying the White Tooth Range at Reinhart and Seckberg Quarries Ltd, and his sole responsibility that of engineering and structuring explosions in order for miners and quarrymen to reach precious lodes. Franco could smell HighJ from a thousand paces, and tell exactly what type and quantity of explosive had been used - just by the roar of detonation. It had been commented that he was an obsessive; he'd be the first to agree.