Steel Beneath the Skin

by Niall Teasdale

  Odanari

  ‘It’s the Jansen women, sir.’ The Humanity First soldier who had landed the job of explaining what had happened to Charles Hunter was not happy about it. His eyes darted from Hunter to the woman near him with the kind of nervous look a man got when he felt the messenger might end up strangled with his own entrails. ‘She’s holed up in the bunker with Narrows.’

  Hunter’s throat had the red shade to it that people who knew him had learned to recognise as a sign that they should be elsewhere. ‘A thousand year old woman and an archaeologist have taken over our primary operations centre and armoury? Is it too much to ask that you remove them?’

  ‘Sir… She used frag grenades on the barracks. We lost eleven men in there. Another fifteen when she opened up with a mini-gun. The minefield around the bunker is still active…’

  Hunter turned sharply to where Andromeda Parry was cleaning her long fingernails with a combat knife. ‘Andromeda, would you be so kind as to demonstrate how to kill a couple of women?’

  Pushing herself up from her position leaning against a desk, Parry smiled and unzipped the jumpsuit she was wearing. ‘Of course, Charles. It would be my considerable pleasure.’

  ~~~

  Aneka sat in the doorway of the bunker watching the undergrowth about a hundred metres away. There were men in the bushes at the treeline. From their postures they were watching her with binoculars or some similar form of high-tech vision aid. Occasionally one of them would take a shot at her and then she would fire back. Unfortunately for them, they had to hit her dead on and she was behind cover since the steps behind the big, metal door sloped down, and she was using a grenade launcher. So far she was ahead by several bodies.

  ‘Why don’t they attack in force?’ Ella asked from the inner door at the bottom of the stairs. She had managed to find a T-shirt and a pair of shorts in a locker at the back of armoury. The T-shirt was too small and the shorts were only held on by a belt, and the entire outfit was far less revealing than Ella was used to wearing, but at least she had clothes.

  ‘Hunter’s trying to build an army. I’ve killed… several of his prospective soldiers and we hold the bulk of their weapons. If they come in, they have to funnel through the gap in the minefield. It would be a shooting gallery and they know it.’ Something shifted in the undergrowth and she turned her head to look at it, frowning. ‘If they’re going to try something, they’ll come in the way I did, which is why there’s a rigged gas grenade in the air vent and you have a gas mask.’

  Ella lifted her hands and looked down at the mask in one of them and the laser pistol in the other. The armoury was heavy on the gauss weapons, but it had a few lasers and blasters. ‘You really think we can hold out until someone comes?’

  ‘If you conserve your water supply. You might go a little funny eating those survival rations for more than a couple of days. Last time I had to eat them for a week I developed an enormous craving for, well, real food actually. Put on two kilos before I got it under control.’

  The redhead gave a nervous giggle. ‘Can’t have that. You won’t love me if I get fat.’

  It was probably just a turn of phrase, “you won’t love me…” Love? Aneka was not sure she had ever loved anyone who she was not related to, but if she had she had lost every last one of them a thousand years ago. And Ella was a woman. And was actually loving anyone such a great idea when you could lose them? Aneka had avoided long term relationships in her own time because of her work, but now…

  The something in the bushes moved again. ‘Ella, could you go back inside and shut the door? Something’s happening.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I am not really sure, but there’s something moving with a purpose.’ She heard Ella moving back and the door closing, but her attention was on the heat signature moving out of the undergrowth and across the open grass. It was keeping low to the ground and moving slowly as though it was expecting to remain unseen even without cover. Aneka pulled the gauss rifle beside her closer. The digital zoom on her eyes was not as good as the similar feature on her pistol, but she activated it, narrowing her field of view to the moving shape. With the multi-spectral enhancement turned off the shape on the grass, suddenly very still, was almost impossible to make out. It was only knowing where it was that let her make out the outline of Andromeda Parry. Aneka took her hand from the rifle.

  ‘Ella?’ Aneka said over the comm-connection she had through to the intercom in the control room.

  ‘Yes, Aneka? Figured out what’s out there?’

  ‘Andromeda, Hunter’s partner, but she’s… camouflaged. It’s like her skin’s changing to match the grass. Doesn’t look like a suit. I think she’s naked.’

  ‘Really? It’s not impossible, but it would mean… She’s probably not human. A bio-engineered life form. Some people call them bioroids, biological androids, or synthezoids, or artificial people, or… you get the picture. They use variant DNA, nanotechnology to form the structures. The normal rules don’t apply. She could have all sorts of weird tricks to her physiology and still look human.’

  Aneka watched as Parry continued her slow, patient crawl toward the bunker. ‘Well, she thinks I can’t see her so I think I’ll let her get closer.’ A thought struck her and she grinned. ‘Huh, the leader of a human-purist organisation is bumping uglies with a synthetic humanoid.’

  Ella giggled. ‘Never heard that one. “Bumping uglies”?’

  ‘We had a lot more colourful euphemisms for sex when it was more of a taboo subject.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Maybe just different ones, but you’re more open about it so I’m guessing yes. The wild mamba, the horizontal tango, buttering the muffin, hiding the salami, doing the nasty, playing doctor. One of the marines I knew used to call it the “blanket hornpipe.”’

  Ella giggled. ‘You should make sure Gillian gets this stuff down.’

  ‘I’ll mention it to her.’ Parry had made it to the outer bounds of the minefield. The entrance to the path between the mines was marked by a “Minefield!” sign and the camouflaged figure was about a metre from it, ten metres from Aneka, give or take. Pulling the rifle around, Aneka squeezed off a burst at the post, the thin needles shredding it; Parry flinched as splinters of wood hit her bare skin.

  ‘Hey, Parry,’ Aneka called out. ‘If you turn around now I won’t shoot you in the back.’

  Parry’s skin shifted back to normal colour and she moved into a crouch. ‘You’re good, Jansen. No one’s ever spotted me before. Out of professional courtesy, if you give up now I won’t give your little friend to the troops.’

  ‘Seriously? That’s your play? I have your communications centre and your arsenal, and you’re going to suggest I give up to avoid you hurting my friend?’

  ‘Your choice.’ Parry moved, bolting for the gap in the mines. Aneka took a fraction of a second to consider, which seemed like minutes to her accelerated mind. One shot would possibly take Parry down, but she was an unknown quantity and the rifle fired very small calibre rounds. At this range a second shot was unlikely to make it out of the barrel and Aneka would be left holding a useless weapon. She pushed the gun aside and picked up her knife.

  Parry was going for a body slam, a full on charge, and she dipped her shoulder at the last instant to drive it into Aneka’s chest. Aneka’s knife swung in as she did so, coming in from the side and driving in under the ribs. She saw the artificial woman’s eyes widen just before her shoulder hit, the impact carrying them both back into the bunker to tumble down the stairs. Aneka hit the concrete floor first with Parry on top, but Aneka could tell that that was not going to be a problem.

  White blood spattered Aneka’s face as Parry opened her mouth. A long, almost snake-like tongue extended out and Aneka did nothing as it curled around her neck. There was no pressure. Aneka felt Parry’s hands clench on her biceps, and then the light went out in her eyes.

  The inner door burst open and Ella let out a gasp as she saw Parry’s crumpled body with An
eka’s dagger sticking out of her side. Aneka could not wait for her to sort out her shock, however, she thrust Parry’s body off her, rolled over, and bolted for the stairs.

  Sure enough, five Humanity First soldiers were charging toward the bunker, using Parry’s assault to rush them. Aneka grabbed her rifle, dropped full length onto the grass, and fired. The foremost member of the team stumbled and fell as his chest was opened up like a cantaloupe. She flicked the rifle over to full-auto and swept it across the squad’s path. Two of them fell, their legs cut from under them. The last two turned and ran. Aneka planted a burst of needles in their backs, the last of them almost making it to cover before he fell.

  ‘Her b-blood,’ Ella said at the bottom of the stairs. ‘It’s a… a high-capacity oxygen transport.’

  ‘Cute. Seen her tongue? It’s got to be useful for close combat, but I can’t help but feel it’s mostly there so she gives fantastic head.’

  ‘There’s a commercial bioroid called a Succubus model that has that, so… yeah.’

  ‘Succubus model… right. When it gets dark I’m going to go take care of Hunter.’

  There was a slight pause. ‘Is that wise? What if they come here while you’re out? I’m not a soldier, you know?’

  ‘They won’t. It’ll be dark and they’ll be huddling in a corner praying the nasty lady with the big guns doesn’t come for them.’ Aneka switched to her grenade launcher and fired at an infrared signature on the edge of the tree line. There was a scream which finished in a gurgle just after the detonation. ‘Assuming there’s any of them left to come after you, of course.’

  ~~~

  Charles Hunter bolted awake as Parry’s body thudded onto the foot of his bed. He barely spared her a glance, however, and that more than anything else meant he had to die. Instead, he looked up at Aneka, his eyes narrowing.

  ‘I thought you’d come here,’ he said. ‘When Andromeda didn’t come back, I knew she was dead, and that you’d come after me.’

  ‘I know you did,’ Aneka replied. ‘Don’t expect your guards to be coming in to save your arse.’

  ‘You killed all five?’

  Aneka smiled. ‘Seven. You really did think I was coming. You can’t have many left. When the Navy gets here they’re going to be a bit bored.’

  ‘The Navy… Of course, you’ve had the communications suite for a while, you’ll be thinking that you got through to them. All communications from here go through the mainland. They informed me as soon as you sent your message.’

  Aneka smiled at him. ‘Well, if you’re telling the truth I’d need to slaughter every last one of you, and I’ll get right on that. However, I sent the message before picking Ella up from the hut. If you’d been told about it, you’d have intercepted us. Care to change your story before I kill you and every other male on the island?’

  He moved, pulling a heavy-looking pistol from under the second pillow on his bed. She threw her left arm up in front of her face as he fired. Messages flashed across her vision field. Electron beam impact. Dermal layer penetrated. Internal damage, Function unimpaired. Then she heard Hunter gasp and used his surprise to dart forward and grab his wrist, pulling the gun aside and locking his arm. He let out a cry of pain, but it was still his expression of shock which was most evident.

  Aneka glanced at her left arm. Part of the skin had been burned away to reveal the armour layer beneath. It was kind of pretty; the light glinted off the fibres as though it was some sort of cloth made from diamonds. She looked back at Hunter. ‘Huh, yeah. Joke’s on you really. The Xinti replaced my body with a synthetic one. They were nothing but digital minds in a manufactured shell, and that’s what they did to me. You wanted a human from before all these genetic changes. You got a robot.’

  ‘You… you’re… an abomination!’

  ‘That makes two of us then,’ she replied. Then she straightened the fingers of her free hand and slammed them into throat. He blacked out almost instantly from the shock, but she could hear his breath rattling in his throat. ‘Still alive,’ she muttered and she reached toward him, focussing on his throat, fingers spread. The force generator had a setting she had not mentioned to anyone else; an oscillating graviton field formed briefly within Hunter’s neck crushing his windpipe. He coughed once, blood flecking his lips, and then he lay still.

  2.7.524 FSC.

  ‘I’m showing a missile battery near the landing platform on the north-west side, but I’m seeing no radar emissions at all, not even tracking radar.’ The sensor officer of the assault shuttle watched his displays nervously. The briefing had stated that there were well-armed terrorists on the island they were two minutes away from and, frankly, the entire assault team was on a hair trigger. They had trained for this over and over again, but actually doing it was another matter.

  ‘All right,’ Commander Brod said, ‘we drop into that clearing in the centre of the island. Set us a course for insertion.’ He shifted in his harness, tapping a pad on the multi-display rig in front of him. ‘Captain, we’re going in.’

  Gibbons’ voice sounded over Brod’s headset. ‘Any sign of resistance?’

  ‘So far it looks like the entire island is dead…’

  ‘Picking up infrared signatures in the housing structures around the outer edge,’ the sensor officer announced. ‘All immobile.’

  ‘We’ve got warm bodies,’ Brod said, ‘but if they’re aware of us they’re not doing anything about it.’

  ‘Take all due precautions, Commander,’ Gibbons said. ‘Remember we have non-combatants in there.’

  ‘Confirmed. Brod out.’ The commander disengaged his harness and moved toward the rear of the shuttle where his team was waiting. Thirty men and women in combat suits with ducted-turbofan drop packs, the same gear as Brod was wearing, all locked into stabilising brackets on the sides of the troop compartment. ‘Disengage locks and prepare for deployment. I want a standard defensive drop, keep it tight, and check your targets. There are civilians down there.’

  The rear ramp lowered as the troops disconnected from the ship. The red light over the door began to flash and they prepped for disembarkation; the twin turbofan system on their backs kicked into life and each of them readied their laser rifle. The light went green and they charged out into the air, five hundred metres over the island.

  There was no gunfire from below, no sign of anyone responding to their arrival. The shuttle circled slowly above them as they dropped, its underside turret turning to cover the ground below with its heavy laser and rotary cannon. It was not needed. The platoon landed without incident, dropping their flight packs and lowering into watchful crouches with weapons and multi-spectral sensor arrays scanning the undergrowth.

  ‘I’m picking up no comm traffic,’ the sensor officer announced over their encrypted field radios. ‘There appears to be no response at all.’

  ‘All right,’ Brod said. ‘We’ve got the layout. Squad One, you’re with me. We’ll circle to the beach and search the houses. Squad Two, head straight for the barracks buildings. Squad Three, take that bunker. Move.’

  Brod had barely made it into the tree line when he heard Squad Three’s leader over the radio. ‘Sir, we’ve secured the bunker. The doors were wide open and there’s no one here. There is an armoury stocked up with some pretty heavy weapons, and a couple of bodies. Whatever happened here, we missed it.’

  ‘Okay, sweep south and circle around to the east once you’ve hit the beach.’

  ‘Acknowledged.’

  ‘Sir?’ Squad Two’s leader this time. ‘We’ve reached the barracks. Looks like grenades, some small arms fire. There’s nothing here but bodies.’

  Brod frowned. What the hell had happened here? ‘Continue north to the larger house.’

  ‘Acknowledged. Sir, what happened to these people? If I didn’t know better I’d think we’d already been here.’

  ‘No point in speculating. Continue the search.’

  Ahead of Brod’s squad, the rear of a wooden beach hut appeared throug
h the trees. It was not large, but big enough to contain a couple of rooms. Brod could make out a heat signature, probably lying down, though the thick wood made it hard to be sure exactly what he was seeing. He signalled for them to move forward and they went by fire team, leap-frogging forward toward the back wall of the hut.

  It was as Brod reached the corner of the building that they heard the scream. It was female, definitely, and coming from inside the hut. ‘Move!’ Brod snapped, turning the corner himself as his people rushed forward. The front of the hut seemed to be just a bank of light curtains. Brod came around to the front of the hut and saw his men holding the fabric open and just… standing there looking surprised. Brod pulled a curtain aside and looked in, just in time to see a tall, tanned, white-haired woman lifting her head from between the legs of a shorter redhead.

  Aneka licked her lips and wiped at the corners of her mouth with a hand. ‘I’m glad you people could join us,’ she said. ‘Beach holidays are cool, but I’ll get bored and kill people if I have to sunbathe much more.’

  FNb Admiral Banfry

  ‘We’ve taken seven men into custody,’ Gibbons said, ‘and we’ve got thirty women in the infirmary and the guest quarters. We put the bodies…’ His gaze moved across his desk to where Aneka was sitting, Ella beside her. ‘...and there were a lot of bodies, in one of the storage holds.’

  Winter nodded. ‘Hunter?’ The spy mistress had arrived a couple of hours after the island had been evacuated of non-combatants, with an entourage of technicians and security specialists.

  ‘Is one of the bodies. So is Parry. Turns out she was a synthetic. Techs say she’s a Valkyrie, a combat variant of a Succubus model.’

  ‘Did you have to kill him, Miss Jansen?’ She did not sound exactly disappointed about it.

  ‘No,’ Aneka replied, ‘but I really wanted to.’

  ‘Yes, well I can understand that. How are you, Miss Narrows?’

  ‘I’m… okay, mostly. I’ll have to put up with having a period this month, I hope. The doctors are saying they can’t be sure I won’t end up pregnant for another few days.’ She paused. ‘And I’m not anxious to have sex with a man any time soon.’