War Machine (The Combat-K Series)

by Andy Remic

  Franco rode the crates like a rodeo cowboy, screaming all the way to the ground. The impact smashed the six crates into shards of exploding wood, and there, stranded in the middle like a turtle on its back was Franco. In the blink of an eye he was surrounded by... grenades.

  “I don’t bloodybelieve it!”

  What a coincidence, screamed his mind!

  What a stroke of incredible luck!

  Franco’s eyes went wide at the small, black, round alloy bombs—thousands of them—nestling like black eggs in their exploded polystyrene packaging. The Dog, which had been kicking frantically to free itself, rolled from splinters with grenades tumbling from its back like pebble dandruff. It found its feet, rotated to face Franco, and stared into a fist clasping a bomb.

  Its mouth opened in a snarl.

  Franco tossed the bomb inside, and stumbled back.

  Falling and slipping as if on ice, Franco retreated. The Dog choked for a moment, a look of confusion passing across metal features. Then there was a distant, muffled boom. The Dog seemed to glow, and then blossom with radiation as its flanks and neck expanded outwards in a shimmering fireball, which, which...

  Franco blinked.

  A fireball, which was sucked back inside, and re-formed into solid metal. The Dog turned. It grinned at him, and belched an acid detonation belch.

  “What?” screamed Franco. “What? You little bugger. You should be dead!”

  The Dog pounced, Franco slipping and sliding, rolling and tottering on the grenades that had turned suddenly from saviour to betrayer; he fell over onto his back, the Dog above him snarling a metal snarl as eyes narrowed and jaws slammed down.

  With a whimper, Franco lifted his arm to protect his face. Teeth clamped his arm, clamped the arm covered in high-tech military WarSuit. There was a whine. The WarSuit held. Franco’s face went through shades of red and purple. The Dog shook its captured arm like a terrier shakes a rat. Pulses of pain hammered through Franco’s flesh and bones. The Dog grunted, exerting yet more pressure. Its jaws began to click and actually bend with the extreme force.

  Franco, eye to eye with the beast, grinned.

  “Not like eating little kids, is it?” he growled, face to snarl. The Dog shook him. He lifted his MPK, poked the barrel into the Dog’s muzzle behind his trapped arm, and unleashed a volley of rounds which screamed intothe machine. Smoke rolled from the Dog’s nostrils. It started to make curious mechanical sounds, deep internal whirrings, but out of joint, out of synch, like an engine about to explode.

  Franco kept firing. The MPK’s barrel glowed red. More smoke poured free and the sound was terrifying, deafening, a din of metal, screeching metal, tearing metal, raping metal, and suddenly the Dog released Franco and staggered back, sections of it forming into metal particles, which flowed around the floating torso, which glowed, in turn, with a deep inner fusion.

  The detonation was coming. Franco could feel it in his bones, in his soul.

  Franco found his feet, and scrabbled for more grenades, stuffing them into his pockets. He turned to run, and came face to face with the other two Dogs. He smiled weakly. “Ah. Forgot about you two for a moment there,” he said.

  They growled, and leapt for his throat.

  Franco staggered back drunkenly, and fell towards the juddering, near-fluid machine behind. It yammered. Its eyes rotated like marbles. It was quite obviously about to... detonate.

  He heard the tiniest click of ignition.

  Franco screamed, and covered his head.

  Chapter 10

  Eelmarsh

  Franco’s eyes remained shut, chin between knees, arms folded disjointedly over his head in a parody of protection. He suddenly became aware that he was making a whimpering ululation that, in any other situation, might even have been funny.

  And... nothing happened.

  Silence fell, drifting like snow.

  Franco opened his eyes and squinted through lead-lined lids into the red stroboscopic gloom; it came as a gradual wondering to understand why he wasn’t being ripped to shreds by the Dogs... or torn asunder by fire, brimstone, hardcore detonation at the rear.

  “You OK, Franco?” It was Pippa’s voice, like honey. It melted his tension into a broiling pot of confusion.

  Franco squinted harder, forcing himself to stop whimpering. He unfolded slowly, arms first, then his legs, then his cranked torso. He climbed warily to his feet and kicked his boots idly, like a naughty schoolchild scuffing toe-caps. Before him, about six inches from his nose, the two attacking Dogs appeared to be floating: front, war-spiked legs outstretched, jaws wide and glistening with machine oil, eyes blank and yet, in an alien way, intent on the kill, the fodder: Him.

  Franco turned and looked at the slim Dog he had fed bullets; it was frozen in a state of swirling particle rearrangement. Inside its almost translucent metal shell a fireball raged in stop-motion. Tiny flames managed to escape and flicker at the edges of the Dog’s shell, turning the joins of the glowing metal panels charcoal black.

  “You took your time,” sniffed Franco, somewhat haughtily.

  Keenan strode forward. He held a small black box. He was grinning in victory. “Sorry about that. You nearly ended up as—ah—dog meat, yeah?”

  “You look way too happy with yourself, Keenan. What goes down? I thought I was gonna get chewed! You made me wet myself! I even wanted one of my orange pills!”

  Keenan waved the box. “Remote control,” he said. “The damn things are remote machines; I can control them with this. All I did was freezethem. A pause button, you understand.”

  Franco rubbed his head. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Cam discovered a signal and homed in on the transmitter. It was simply a case of pressing a button, just like on a Green Vision vid-player.”

  “Very pleased for you,” sniffed Franco. He tapped the Dog on the snout, then stepped smartly to one side. “I want them destroyed, all three. I want them destroyed utterly.”

  “We can do that,” said Pippa. She put a hand on Franco’s shoulder, recognising how shook up he was. She smiled kindly. “There’s a furnace. We can melt them down. Or drown them in the bottomless ocean.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Cam’s voice came over their kube. “We’ve got a problem.”

  “What is it?” growled Keenan, rubbing at his temples. Gods, would it never end?

  “It’s Betezh,” said Cam. “He’s escaped.”

  Combat K pounded through red-lit corridors, down ramps and stairs, and swung into the room with the glowing fire and huddled children. Rebekka was pointing the MPK at the entrance through which they emerged; she was shaking, badly.

  The group came to a halt. The children were frightened, wide eyed. Even Klik looked shaken.

  “What happened?” asked Keenan.

  “He broke his bonds,” said Rebekka, voice hoarse. “I don’t know how. He had a knife, a large black bladed knife. Said he was going to skin us, gut us like fish. All the children...” She shook her head, licking at fear-dry lips. “All of them.”

  “Why didn’t you shoot him?” said Keenan, voice gentle.

  “I-I just couldn’t.”

  “Where did he go?” snapped Pippa, trying hard to hide her annoyance, but failing. It came out in her expression, her stance, the whip-crack of her words.

  Cam floated in, tiny green lights glowing. “I’ve just picked him up. He made the stores. Now his signal has just blipped and gone.”

  “Track blocker?” said Keenan.

  “Yes,” said Cam. “He knows what he’s doing.”

  “Bastard,” hissed Franco. “I knew we should have killed him back on the Hornet. You hear that, Keenan? I told you. I said we should kill him. I told you! Now he’s got to the stores, tooled himself up! S’gonna come looking for me again.” He twitched.

  “Franco,” said Keenan, “wait here. Guard the children. Me and Pippa will go after him.”

  Franco nodded.

  “You ready, Pippa?”

&nbs
p; “Sure thing.”

  “And Keenan?” Franco’s face was deadly serious, eyes narrowed, face gaunt with exhaustion after his run in with the Dogs—and his narrow escape.

  “Yeah?”

  “Kill that son of a bitch for me.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  The chase was a short one. Keenan and Pippa scoured the stores, realising they must have passed Betezh on their way back after disabling the Dogs. He had chosen not to engage them; he had helped himself to weapons, grenades, possibly even food, and fled.

  They worked their way through the Gem Rig’s stores, and as they approached the locked and frozen Dogs, Cam alerted them to movement down at the base of the Rig. Cursing, Keenan and Pippa screamed down ramps and stairs, just in time to see their Raptor Boat disappearing over the horizon.

  A breeze snapped in at them from the Milk Sea. Keenan wiped sweat from his face and made a clicking sound of annoyance at the back of his throat. His eyes met Pippa’s.

  “What we going to do for transport?” she said.

  “There are boats, in the stores: inflatables used by Special Forces. Transport isn’t a problem, but that evil bastard on the loose is.”

  “We can chase him.” Her voice was cool. Eyes hard. “Hunt him down.”

  “No. If he comes looking for us, I’ll happily put a bullet in the back of his skull. We’ve wasted enough time as it is; first on The City, then, after the crash.” Keenan sagged a little. Pools of shadow darkened his eyes. Exhaustion ghosted him. “We need some rest.”

  “The Ket-i might pick him up. They were sure happy to open fire on us. Looks like they don’t make friends easily.”

  “Maybe. I’m still uneasy about leaving him behind, but we’ve no option. Rest, then push on. It’ll take us two days to reach Amrasar; then we have to infiltrate and steal this Fractured Emerald.”

  “I hope Fortune’s plans are accurate.”

  “So do I. Our lives depend upon it.”

  Pippa moved forward, close. Keenan’s breath was a sharp intake. She smiled up at him, reached out and stroked his cheek. She said nothing.

  “What’s that for?” he asked gently.

  Again, breeze snapped in from the sea. Water lapped at the landing ramp. Above them, the disused Gem Rig creaked, a titan sighing as it rested against great rusting legs.

  “Does it have to be for anything?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, I’m worried about you. There, I’ve said it.”

  “Why?”

  Pippa gave a half-shrug, turned her back on him, and strode up the ramp. Keenan stood for a while, staring at the space she had just vacated; then he turned, eyes narrowing at the distant spot that had consumed Betezh.

  “I’d kill for a roll-up,” he muttered, spat into the lazily slapping white, and followed Pippa into the belly of the beast.

  They’d taken it in turns to sleep and keep guard. Klik had led a whooping, giggling raiding party into the Gem Rig’s stores, where all the children had taken turns beating the disabled Dogs with metal poles—not so much for pleasure, but in a needful warlike retribution for so many of their dead friends.

  Keenan, huddled in a thick sleeping bag in the corner, did not dream. He simply sank into an embrace of deep black, was swallowed by velvet and fur, sank down, down, down into warmth and softness, and then awoke, groggy and weary from his coma. He lay for a while, listening to the ambient sounds around him: the creaking of the Rig, the distant lapping of the Milk Sea. Children laughed occasionally and this brought lightness to his heart, lifting his dark mood. And he could hear Pippa and Franco arguing over what supplies they would take with them.

  Pippa appeared, looming over him. She crouched, smiling. “I’ve brought you a present.”

  “Hmm?” Keenan rubbed sleep from his eyes, as Pippa handed him a tin of Widow Makertobacco. He grinned like a schoolboy, face an illumination. “You’ll tell me I’m dreaming in a minute, right?”

  “No. The stores here are extensive. Militarystores; have you ever met a squaddie who didn’t smoke?”

  “Not many,” conceded Keenan. “What’s the rest of the kit like?”

  “Plenty of guns and ammo, Sig Sauers, Sphinx AT7000s, Steyr AUG Paras, Zastavas, Heckler & Koch Q90s, Barrett M2000s, even some esoteric alien machinery. There’s also ammo for your Techrim; fifty-two round mags. Plenty of guns and bombs, but nothing incredibly high-tech; we’ve got bullet proof vests, but no additions to our WarSuits; there are a couple of boats, like you said, even some TT RPGs, and a single solitary RPN that Franco took a shine to.”

  “A Rocket Propelled Nuke?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s an insaneweapon. Do not—I repeat, do not—let Franco bring it with him. That’s all we need, a madman with a nuclear warhead strapped to his groin.”

  “I’ll try my best. There’s also about a million crates of tinned food. It’s what the kids have been living on.”

  Keenan grinned. “So we’ve got supplies,” he said, and finished rolling his first cigarette in what felt like a lifetime. He lit it with his trusty old Zippo, clouds of grey plumed and puffed from the cocoon of his sleeping bag. Keenan rested his head back and sighed, a deep sigh. “That feels good,” he said. He closed his eyes.

  “What’s that smell?” he said eventually.

  “Soup. Klik made a huge pan and the kids are all lounging around with full bellies for the first time in a year. Franco is dipping slices of cheese in his.”

  “Cheese? In soup?”

  “Yeah, that rubbery tinned army cheese. It’s quite disgusting to watch. I feel oddly ill.”

  Keenan laughed, then propped himself on one elbow. He watched Pippa carefully; she was radiant in the gloom.

  “There’s room in here for two,” he said, voice level, low, edged with sudden nervousness.

  He watched as Pippa’s face changed. A mask slotted neatly behind her skin and her eyes went hard, cold. She stood, turned away, then turned back to him. She seemed about to say something, then chewed at her lip.

  “I didn’t mean sex,” said Keenan. There was a gentleness about him. “I meant... just friendship, comfort, warmth.”

  She met his gaze.

  Keenan smoked for a while.

  “I’m not in the mood for your fuckinggames,” she said finally, and stalked away. Keenan sighed, stubbed out his cigarette, and immediately lit another. Food could wait, but his fix had to be fulfilled.

  “Damn it,” he muttered, and snuggled further down into his sleeping bag.

  Two hours later, Keenan sat studying the TuffMAPTM of Ket. Cam floated beside him, strangely silent, a single white light blinking. Keenan had traced their route, and looked at the markings furnished by Fortune. They were heading to Amrasar, one of the five capital cities on the planet; it was huge, sprawling, heavily fortified, and according to Fortune, did not welcome strangers, at all.

  “It will have to be a covert entry,” said Cam.

  Smoke streamed from the roll-up in Keenan’s fingers. He nodded. “Yeah, I know. We could do with an insider, somebody who knows the place.”

  “What about the children?”

  “No, I couldn’t drag them back. They’ve had enough of a rough time as it is. It wouldn’t be fair, especially when considering the nature of our mission—that of theft.”

  “Klik said he came from Amrasar. He will know the land.”

  “Maybe I’ll talk to him,” said Keenan, smoking.

  “I would recommend it,” said Cam. The small PopBot started to spin faster. Keenan nodded.

  “It’s been a hectic ride, hasn’t it little pal?”

  “You could say that, Keenan.”

  “So what’s it like for a GradeA Security Mechanism with advanced SynthAI and an MIR of 3150 to actually go on an adventure? Is it everything you hoped for? Is it... shall we say, exciting enough to alleviate the boredom you felt back on Galhari?”

  “Let’s just say the ride has been far from dull.”

  “Have
you forgiven Franco? For the right hook?”

  “He told you about that, did he?”

  “Yeah,” grinned Keenan. “Look, you know it wasn’t personal, don’t you? I should have known nothing could stand between Franco, a pint of Guinness and a one-legged whore.”

  Cam seemed to sigh. He stopped spinning and just hung, immobile. “It’s just,” said the little machine, “it is a little degrading to be thumped and then volleyed like the main attraction at a penalty shootout. It’s not something I anticipated; not something I appreciate.”

  “He has been locked up for a while, Cam. I can kind of appreciate his need.”

  “Listen Keenan, it is my opinion that Franco is a serious threat to this mission. He is unpredictable, unfeasibly cheerful, and quite obviously utterly mad.”

  “Ye-es, but he’s a good bloke to have beside you in a fire-fight. He looks after his friends, and where it counts he’s as good as ten men. He is also a demolitions expert, and I’ve got a feeling we’re going to need that skill to get to the Fractured Emerald.”

  “It’s in a vault?”

  “Oh yes,” said Keenan, “a mile beneath the surface of the city.”

  “That’s a long way down. Also, while we’re on the subject, I think Pippa is a serious threat to this mission.”

  “You’re in a fine mood, aren’t you little Cam?”

  “I am your Security PopBot. My mission is to protect you. I cannot control you, but I can certainly advise you. Pippa is, in a different manner to Franco, unstable. I think deep down she truly does hate you. I think your little invitation to the sleeping bag was a bad move; you have set a timer ticking inside her head, ignited a bomb fuse. Before long, Keenan, she will explode.”

  “You heard that, did you?”

  “I hear a lot of things,” said the PopBot smugly.

  “Yeah, I acknowledge it was probably a mistake. Maybe I’m just a little bit lonely. Maybe I thought... I don’t know. Maybe I thought my charm would win through, pierce her armour; you know what I mean?”