Hardcore - 03

by Andy Remic

  Now, he stared at the map.

  He thought about pitiful, meaningless, pointless, futile damn missions.

  And how, in the boredom-filled interim, he might make himself a very rich man...

  The Rapid Offence SLAM Cruiser Rearward Entry howled at the zenith of its still accelerating arc, and below, spinning into view, loomed the colourful and slightly ovoid planet, Krakken IV. Sick World. The Hospital Planet. The Continent of the Cursed.

  Touching a few metres from orbit there came three heavy-duty clangs, and the military DropShips detached with a roar of stabilising motors and spread, like petals from a flower stem, and slammed down towards the spinning panorama below...

  In a blink, the SLAM Cruiser was gone.

  Combat K and their teams were on their own.

  The three teams had separated into personal DropShip vehicles, and each team watched through vertical-drop windscreens as Sick World enlarged at a horrifying rate. Colours and gases swirled and coalesced, and the planet became a panorama, became continents and oceans. Sunlight gleamed across the Sick World and Franco, in his own DropShip, gasped as he piloted the fast descending vehicle.

  "Beautiful, ain't she?" said Shazza.

  "Impressive," agreed Fizzy.

  "OK, checking earlobe comms," said Pippa from her own craft. "Are we all plugged in?"

  One by one each squad member confirmed, and Pippa ran through PAD integration and Tuff-Map bandwidth.

  Through the higher reaches of the atmosphere the three streaking ships left arcing trails of vapour, gently curving away from one another as they began descent and flight-path programming to individual locations. Only then, did Keenan's low growl come over the monitors.

  "I've got a problem."

  Snake leapt forward, his eye analysing the DropShip's scanners and readouts; he glanced at Keenan, whose knuckles had gone tight on the control rods. "We're dropping fast, Keenan. What's up?"

  "Something's locked the ailerons. I can't bring us out of the dive..."

  "What is it?"

  "The scanners are saying a physical obstruction."

  "I'll go and look," snapped Snake, turning.

  "No," said Keenan. "You take the controls. I'll check it out."

  "Ed," said Snake, "go with Keenan, see if you can help."

  Ed nodded, and followed Keenan up the DropShip's internal gyroscopic ramp. Keenan reached the cargo doors and heard engines screaming as Snake applied extra backward thrust, beginning to slow their descent... but he knew, knew they were going too fast in their violent drop. If they didn't level out, they'd plough a furrow in the landscape deep enough to plant a city.

  Keenan peered out of the portal, but couldn't quite see the ailerons. The DropShip had started to shudder. He hit a palm-pad which read his ident, confirmed, and with a hiss the door slid open a few inches allowing an insane, buffeting wildness to enter the DropShip interior.

  "What's going on, Keenan?" came Pippa over the earlobe comm.

  "We're about to become pizza."

  Keenan edged towards the buffeting gap, and Ed came up close behind. Keenan glanced back at the wiry, tattooed man, who gave a grin of encouragement which reminded Keenan of a shark encouraging a goldfish into its jaws.

  OK, he thought. This is where I explore my trust issues!

  "You hold on tight, now, won't you?"

  "I'll do my best, Keenan," said Ed, grabbing the larger man's belt.

  Keenan peered out into the buffeting insanity. The wind nearly took his head clean off, and he could smell a fresh, bright scent, the purity of air without heavy industrial tox. It reminded him of home. Galhari. A home now ravaged, abused, invaded, a home nothing more than a junk-infested, toxic wasteland...

  Eyes streaming tears, Keenan peered out. But could see nothing.

  "We have two minutes!" screamed Snake down the corridor. "I can't guide her, Keenan! We'll end up in the sea!"

  Keenan dragged his head back in, took a deep breath, and stared hard at Ed. "I'm gonna have to go out."

  "You'll be crushed by the pressure, man," said Ed.

  "No. The Permatex will protect me; I just need you to keep an eye on the straps and reel me in when I'm done." He ran across the corridor, slamming open a locker to pull free a long coil of TitaniumIII cable on a reel. Back at the door, he clicked and locked the reel in place, and snapped two locks to his own belt.

  Then he moved to the edge, and the howling, screaming wind.

  Keenan glanced at Ed; their eyes met. Ed gave a single nod.

  Keenan stepped out into the buffeting wind, hands like clamp-claws on the recessed holds down the DropShip flanks. The world was a bright expanse. It was like God had peeled the top off the world and let the sunlight in.

  This is insane, his mind rebelled, as pressure slammed him like an axe blow.

  I am going to die, he thought.

  I'm going to be sucked free and smashed into the fucking engines...

  Shit.

  Slowly, inch by painful inch, Keenan forced himself along the wall of the screaming, rocking DropShip...

  CHAPTER THREE

  SICK WORLD I: KLUDEK

  It waited in the slime, playing with its peroxide-blonde hair, twirling tight curls and bobs between fingers with lacquered, polished nails and enjoying the feel of oozing mud and rotting vegetation on pale and pasty skin. A distant roar infiltrated the heavens, and the creature looked up, a quick, insect-like movement. Blue eyes narrowed in a fat slug-face, and cherry lips pulled back over crooked yellow teeth as the nurse grinned, lips peeling right back over a distended jaw bone as a tongue fought at teeth cage bars and finally pushed free on a bed of saliva, unrolling and unrolling right down to the nurse's plump, generous waist, where it thrashed and twisted, like a caught eel.

  "Come - to - me," croaked the nurse, levering her arms back and jacking her body up from the slime, where it was revealed she had no legs, just two rounded stumps with stalks of bone protruding like wood from tattered skin. The nurse smiled, and it was a friendly smile; the sort of smile an inmate gives to the warden. "I want to make you better again," she said, in all innocence.

  Once, during a stint as an engineer on a Class III Cruiser whilst training for Combat K, Keenan had slipped and fallen into a pressure vat. His protective SuckSuck rubber clothing saved him, but even after the suck and hiss of the blink-response inflatable, the experience had been incredibly painful, a continued pummelling of pressure waves, rolling him and crushing him, as if beaten eternally by plate-sized fists. Now, clinging to the side of the DropShip, Keenan felt a twinge of memory - only this time he was thousands of feet above the ground, and one wrong slip, one twist, one fall, and he'd be sucked away and broken on rocks far below; or worse, ground like minced beef-substitute through the vibrating, howling engine ports.

  Keenan edged along the wall, fingers locking to recess after recess. Cloud streamers hissed past his face. Water trickled down the neck of his WarSuit. The world was a howling cacophony, every sense slammed and battered, every moment a perpetuity of pounding. Teeth grinding, boots slipping and kicking, Keenan edged and edged, and more on instinct than a realisation of where he was, glanced up, the engine ports closer now, as were stubby wings and aerofoils used to guide the DropShip. Keenan's eyes narrowed. There, halfway down the aerofoil flap, was a black alloy box - effectively, a wedge. Shit. The ship's been sabotaged, he thought, mind a whirl of sour cream. He eased out his Techrim, itself a battered animal of combat, and with the whole world juddering and pounding around him, his ears whistling, piercing him with pain, he levelled the weapon which vibrated under pressure and fired off a shot. The crack was lost, and the bullet missed. Keenan fired again, and a spark ricocheted from the wedge, but the alien artefact remained securely in place. Eyes streaming tears, Keenan released a long, easy breath and focused. He squeezed the trigger, and the alloy wedge flicked, and was gone. Immediately the aerofoil started responding, and Keenan put his gun away and eased himself back along the flank of the DropShip.
The machine groaned, and dropped suddenly, and through tears Keenan could see the ground rising awesomely fast.

  Snake, what are you doing? he thought.

  Snake! Pull the bastard up...

  Engines howled, a deep reverberating drone beginning past the edges of hearing and rising fast in pitch. The DropShip's nose lifted, levelled, and started to gain height. Keenan caught a glimpse of violent jagged rocky peaks, rimed with ice, flashing beneath his boots and the belly of the DropShip. He licked dry lips, and the thoughts which flickered fast though his mind were far from complimentary.

  Reaching the door, he reached in and Ed grabbed him, wrist to wrist in the warrior's grip. Ed grinned. "You did it, mate."

  "We were sabotaged. The aerofoil was wedged."

  Ed hauled Keenan in, and the battered Combat-K veteran slumped to the floor, his muscles screaming at him, his eyes full of dirt and mouth full of fumes. He breathed, and lethargically unhooked the clips from his belt. Then he glanced up at Ed and grinned. "Thanks for not letting go."

  Ed's head tilted. "I've as much desire for life as you, Keenan. Whoever booby-trapped the ship certainly isn't on board. Or..." Their eyes met.

  Keenan shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Whoever is playing games, well, it'll come out in the wash." He gave a full-teeth grin, and checked his Techrim, sliding free the magazine, then slamming it home with a precision clack. "You see if it doesn't."

  "You OK Kee?" came Pippa's voice on the comm.

  "Yeah, babe," he breathed. Then his teeth clamped shut. Babe? Shit. A close encounter with death and he'd suddenly gone and forgotten her savagery, ruthlessness and downright evil. The female of the species? More deadly than the male? Damn fucking right.

  "We see what you did," came Pippa's voice. "Well done. Tough gig."

  Keenan watched Ed head for the cockpit, leaving him alone. He coiled his cable back on the reel, and dumped it in a locker. Voice low, he said, "Listen. Somebody wanted us down and out of the game. I think it's an inside job."

  "Why's that?" said Pippa, voice a purr.

  "Because I checked the DropShips myself; the only people who've been near after my surveillance are the squads."

  "So we've a mole?"

  "Aye, and a bad one. One who's out to see us all dead."

  "But it can't have been anybody on your ship."

  "Why not? As long as he, or she, had good crash protection equipment stashed. It's amazing what you can survive in these technologically advanced times; remember Ket? We should have been cat meat."

  "I remember. Listen, I'll speak when we meet at the LZ."

  "Out." Keenan's eyes glistened in the gloom. When I find you, he thought, you're going to eat a bullet.

  Jets roaring with green fire, the three DropShips banked, swooping low over an undulating sandy coastline. They howled over thick cross-organic jungle, hazy through early morning steam, and the screams of monkey-trees echoed up at the deafening noise of the three infiltration class infantry ships.

  Pippa, her keen eye on the scanners, pulled imperceptibly ahead as they flashed over trees, a swathe of white beach, and blue and pink coral that reared from the sea like corrugated fingers, leading the other DropShips in a sudden rush towards their destination...

  Behind her, Mel was snoring, strapped into a modified CrashCouch, and Betezh and Olga had ceased their squabbling and fallen into an uneasy silence, eyes watching the flash of green, white, turquoise and blue through the FlexGlass windshield. Pippa thought to herself they looked like sulky schoolchildren, and the image of both in ties and blazers made her grin, her reflection in the FlexGlass a ghost grinning back.

  "Game on," she said, lifting the nose of the DropShip. Motors whirred, and engines howled in response to her precise commands as the vehicle slowed over a massive stretch of sand, a hiatus in the jungle where the beach had spread outwards, consuming the land, usurping the thrones of many mighty hardwoods. Like a lake of sand, a yellow plateau, the kilometre-wide oval ate into the landscape and, with scanners spitting numbers across her HUD, Pippa checked stability readings and brought the DropShip down, unfolding landing gear neatly, and just in time. Engines died, and clicks and hisses echoed out across the beach. Pippa moved to the ramp, stomped down the corrugated alloy, and stepped out into the heat.

  It hit her, a wave of humidity, a hammer-blow of temperature. Pippa loosened the straps of her WarSuit and jumped into the sand, which covered the toes of her boots in an undulating wave. Behind, the other DropShips rotated, jets howling, and lowered, fusing circles of sand into glass, which crackled and pinged as engines died and it cooled.

  Pippa shaded her eyes, gazing off at the shoreline. White breakers crashed against the beach. The sea shimmered, flecked with silver. Too much like Molkrush Fed, she thought. Way too much like Molkrush Fed. But at least on this mission, she wouldn't be left alone with Keenan. The temptation was... too great.

  Betezh stumbled down the ramp behind her, followed by Olga, grumbling and hoisting at her barely restrained WarBra. Mel stayed back, in the shade of the ship. She blinked lazily, jaws drooling zombie-pus.

  "Wow," said Betezh. "This is a beautiful place."

  "Just make sure you don't look in any of ze rock pools, ya?" said Olga.

  "Why?" Betezh raised an eyebrow.

  "Because you scare yourself away! Har har!"

  "Bitch."

  "Bastard."

  "Fatty."

  "Frankenstein."

  "Frankenstein was the creator, not the monster, you bolshy rubber-ring idiot."

  "Ha! You combine ze worst of both!"

  "Kids, kids," said Pippa, holding up both hands. "Shut it, now, or I'll have you on a charge. I'll confine you to the ship. I'll hold back your lolly pop rations - whatever it takes to make you behave like adults."

  "S'not me," sulked Betezh, face a frown, scars forming strange patterns against his broad flat skull. "She started it."

  "Ze did not!"

  "Did."

  Pippa cocked an MPK and held the barrel under Betezh's nose. "Need any more persuasion, motherfucker?"

  "OK, boss."

  Pippa watched the ramps of the other ships descend, and she strode across sand, meeting Keenan, Franco and Cam at the centre of the LZ. They nodded to each other, and Franco patted Keenan on the back.

  "Well done up there, compadre."

  "I won't rest until I find out who dicked with our ships."

  "I'm sure they'll make their presence known, soon enough." Franco hoisted his Kekra quad-barrel machine pistol. "And when they do - fooie!"

  "Keep taking your pills, mate."

  "I am, mate."

  Franco threw a long glance to where Mel hovered, just inside the DropShip. Their eyes met. Mel turned, and disappeared. Franco sighed, then he sighed again, he lifted his shoulders, then slumped, and sighed for a third time.

  Keenan grinned. "I thought you said it was an amicable divorce?"

  "It was. It is. I mean, we're splitting everything fifty-fifty."

  "But you haven't got anything," pointed out Pippa.

  "Yeah," said Franco, showing the black hole of his missing tooth. "But she's got plenty."

  "So you're going to clean the poor lass out?"

  "Hey, she's divorcing me! I figure the least I'm owed, after, after... after sleeping with her, with it, with a bloody zombie, is a bit of, y'know," he twitched, and rubbed at his reddening neck, "compensation."

  Keenan eyed Franco warily. "I'd forgotten what a money-grabbing little bastard you could be, Franco."

  "Hey, can I help it if I was born poor? Can I help it if I try to make my honest way through the world and people step on my financial toes? No. No. I can't bloody well buggering hell help it, can I?"

  "But your mother left you a small fortune," said Keenan.

  "Gambled it."

  "And your uncle left you a fucking star base."

  "Sold it. Drank it. Y'know how it is."

  "No, I don't think I do."

  Keenan took
a deep breath, and looked to Pippa instead. "However." He took another deep breath, not quite believing Franco was in charge of a squad. "All the DropShip scanners are giving readouts which confirm the original data. No intelligent sentient life on the planet, ergo, no threat. This, hopefully, should be a pretty straightforward foray into our designated regions. And we meet back at this LZ in five days. Are we all clear what we have to do?"

  Franco pulled free a thick pack from inside his WarSuit. Papers fluttered free, and were snatched by a cool breeze rolling off the sea and carried high, like fluttering white doves, before disappearing off over the jungle.

  "Sorry," he said, snatching at fluttering sheaves, "what was our mission again?"

  "You've not read the docs?" said Pippa, aghast.

  "Hey, I was going to check them out on the final jag here." He pulled a face. "Not all of us are swots, you know."

  "Swots?" snapped Pippa. "I'm a swot now, am I, you total dickhead? I bet you don't even know what damn continent you're travelling to. Do you?"

  Franco grinned, and held out a hand, palm up. "Chill pill, sister." He gazed around. "Looking at this fine continent, you'll be happy to understand I've packed plenty of combat shorts, plenty of UV50, and a massive stash of sausage. And if that doesn't see me right through this frankly comedy mission, I don't know what will."

  Pippa leant close to Franco. When she spoke, her words were a low growl. "Maybe snow shoes should have been on your list, idiot."

  "Wah?"

  "You're going to Yax," said Keenan, slipping on a pair of square-cut Oakley Solaris shades. "It's just by the north pole. It's snow, ice, crevasses, the full gamut of raging arctic conditions." He showed his teeth, although it was far from a smile. "Why did you think Fizzy and Shazza brought their skis?"