War Machine (The Combat-K Series)

by Andy Remic

  “Settle down?” asked Pippa.

  “That’s right.”

  “You still want me by your side?” Her voice was a lullaby.

  “If you’ll have me,” said Keenan.

  “I think we’d make the perfect couple.”

  “What, you with your psychosis, me with my smoking habit?” He laughed. “We’d make a fine couple of lunatics.”

  “If that’s what it takes.”

  “Maybe in another life,” said Keenan, turning his eyes back to the road.

  Pippa said nothing.

  Keenan halted the Buggy with a grinding of stones on a high ridge. Before them, the world fell away, a vast scoop carved from the rocky internal plateau on which they travelled... and in the distance, something sparkled with a bright, jewelled clarity.

  Emerald climbed from the Buggy, and stood on the lip of the drop beside Keenan and Pippa. A breeze caressed her dark ringlets. Franco joined them, but Betezh remained in the Buggy, his face a thunderstorm of raging unhappiness.

  “The Lake of Diamonds,” said Emerald, reverently.

  “We could be rich!” grinned Franco.

  “They are not for the taking,” said Emerald, “on pain of death.”

  “Not even a handful?”

  “No.”

  “What about a few? Just a few sparkling diamantes? Just to bring a smile to old Franco’s face? Eh? Eh? What about it?”

  “No.”

  “One?”

  “No.”

  “A half?”

  “Franco, how can you steal half a diamond?” said Pippa quizzically.

  “Cut it, with a Vibro Saw. I’ve seen it done. Worked right well, it did.”

  “Let’s get moving,” said Keenan, holding his ribs in pain. “The sooner we get this thing done, the sooner we can go home.”

  “You really believe that?” said Pippa.

  “No, but I’ll die trying.”

  “That’s why I love you,” said Pippa.

  Keenan’s eyes met hers, and he saw the shining light that had haunted him through so many years. Their relationship had never been stable, but he saw hope there. Something hardened inside him; after all, in a few minutes they might all be dead.

  “Let’s move out.”

  They climbed into the Buggy, and Franco nudged Betezh, his eyes gleaming, his lips slick. He rubbed at his ginger beard with rustling sounds. “We could be rich,” he muttered, face displaying wily cunning.

  “You still taking your pills? After all the ones we gave you back at Mount Pleasant?” said Betezh.

  “No! I don’t need no pills!” But Betezh caught it, the lie.

  “Good,” said Betezh, settling back into the bucket seat and fixing his gaze on the back of Keenan’s head. “Well, let’s see what finale this adventure can bring, especially when you don’t take your medicine. You sure you feel OK?”

  “Why?”

  Betezh smiled. “Oh. No reason.”

  “Bugger off.”

  “Tsch. Tetchy.”

  “Bugger off!”

  Betezh shrugged.

  The Buggy surged ahead, tipping over the lip of the near-vertical descent and ploughing down with a sudden screaming acceleration. Suspension crashed, tyres squealed and squirmed, and the Buggy’s occupants held on for life as the vehicle clattered and smashed its way to the distant rocky floor... where it levelled out, and Emerald called a halt.

  “You must follow my directions with care,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The ground is created from a cold liquid rock. I will guide you through.”

  Keenan followed Emerald’s instructions, and as they cruised down invisible pathways they glanced nervously over the sides of the Buggy. The rock, very slowly, and very subtly... flowed. It looked solid enough until closely scrutinised, but it was a liquid, viscous, moving, and deadly as quicksand.

  “Nasty,” said Keenan after a while.

  “A trap for the unwary,” said Emerald, voice sombre. She threw a glance at Franco, “And the greedy.”

  As they came close to the Lake of Diamonds, a glittering white light gradually filled the horizon, spreading out, making the cavern grow with brightness and clarity; the light grew, dazzling Combat K with sparkling shafts of iridescence.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Pippa.

  “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend,” chuckled Franco.

  “Meaning?”

  “If we weren’t facing certain death I’d ask you to marry me.”

  Pippa turned. “You serious?”

  “Deadly.”

  “I think I’d have to turn you down.”

  Franco sighed. “It’s the beard, right? I need to lose the beard.”

  “Um. Yeah, it’s the beard, and your perverted indoor deviant habits.”

  “Ahh, but a good woman would cure me of those!”

  “And you think I’m a good woman?”

  “I think you’re a... a... a woman.”

  “Well, thank you very much.”

  “Look at that,” whistled Keenan, as the sparkling from the spreading Lake of Diamonds grew in clarity, filling not just their horizon but their world. And there, in the midst, sat a bridge, a narrow umbilical, which reared and stretched away, high above streaming diamond fingers of dancing iridescent light.

  “The Bridge of Bone,” said Emerald.

  “Looks like a spine to me,” snorted Franco.

  Everybody looked at him.

  “What?” he snorted. “What?”

  “You don’t exactly cheer the situation,” said Pippa, finally.

  “Just adding input.” Franco scratched his beard. “Is it dangerous?”

  “Very,” said Emerald. “Take care, Keenan, the road is as slippery as ice, and the Bridge of Bone moves, it ripples, undulates, shifts as if alive. Move slowly, but never stop.”

  Keenan gunned the engine, slammed the Buggy forward and mounted the Bridge of Bone; they soared out over the Lake of Diamonds, high into the air above the shimmering lake, which spread out around them, became the ground, became the glittering air: became the entire world.

  They were stunned by the vision, the vista, the panorama. Never had Combat K witnessed such breathtaking spectacle, and just as their awe was reaching a peak, the Bridge suddenly bucked, wrenching sideways and dropping towards the surface of the lake. Franco screamed, clinging on with white knuckles as hairs stood on end, and his body tried forcibly to rise from its seat. Grim faced, Keenan, half-blinded by the sparkling sea of jewels, powered the Buggy down, around, wheels spinning and losing traction, the vehicle lurching as it fought and squealed to stay on the undulating bridge, which slammed right, then reared into the air like a live thing: a snake, a dark bone eel. The intensity of the Lake of Diamonds was too much; Keenan felt himself blinded stunned hammered against an anvil of diamond with all the breath ripped from his guts and life smashed from his frame. The Buggy screamed, and went into a sideways skid with engine yammering howling spitting dark oil blood. Franco was screaming, Pippa crying in fear as adrenaline kicked her skull but all turned to liquid turned to light turned to brittle intensity as the world folded over and over, down on itself. Nothing mattered, nothing could fill Keenan’s head like the brightness and the nausea that swamped him, and flooded him, and took him in its fist and crushed him.

  Chapter 17

  Silver

  Keenan opened his eyes. The sky was the colour of copper shot through with rusted iron. A vicious wind blew, cutting across him, chilling him instantly to the bone. He was lying on his back. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, wincing as they dug the sharp rock floor, and realised he was on a mountain summit. A cairn of rounded black stones squatted to his left; ahead, the world dropped away to an apparently infinite chasm spreading out to endless mountains, distant, snow-capped, jagged, violent and unwelcoming. Keenan glanced right, and his breath caught in his throat.

  “Rachel... Ally...” he murmured, aware this was a dream, had to be a dream, be
cause the two girls were dead, throats cut and cold in a grave on a distant planet, in a lonely universe. The girls, sitting on flat round rocks, looked up; Rachel squealed, and both scrambled up, and ran to him, buffeted by the violent snapping wind. They were in his arms, engulfing him, and tears coursed hot streaks down his cheeks, falling like mercury snowdrops into their hair, and he held his girls to him, held them tight and smelled their hair and felt their warmth and life, and he wept. He wept for a past that was gone, wept for a crime that should never have happened... wept for a criminally unjust loss of innocence.

  “Daddy!”

  Keenan pulled away a little, staring down into both girls’ tear-filled eyes. They hugged him again, hugs so tight he knew they would never let go. He kissed their heads, their hair, their eyes. And he knew, then, realised with a certainty he had never believed possible...

  He wanted to die.

  He wanted to be with them.

  Revenge meant nothing; revenge was a fable, an empty promise, an unfulfilled dream. It would solve nothing; not now. It could do no good. All Keenan wanted was to spend eternity with his children.

  “Listen, Daddy.” It was Rachel, her face set, stern despite its youth, serious.

  “I love you two so much,” he smiled, tears still falling.

  “You’re in great danger, Daddy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You must trust nobody, not even those close to you. They will get you killed.”

  “Rachel?”

  Then Keenan felt the tug, felt himself being dragged away from the girl by snaps of wind, and pushed, cracked, heaved towards the edge of the mountain. The girls were straining to hold on to him, straining to touch him, to never let go... they could never let go, and the mountain lurched, tipped violently as if upended by a roaring giant, and the copper sky flashed before him, crashed before his eyes, and nausea swamped him.

  “Keenan! You OK, Keenan?”

  He opened his eyes. Pippa was staring down at him.

  “I saw them,” he whispered, as he became aware of the rumbling engine of the Buggy.

  “Saw who?”

  Keenan frowned, then clamped his jaw shut. The warning came back to him, but he shook his head, clouded, confused; just a dream, the product of a fried mind in a near-death situation. He closed his eyes, and could still smell his children’s hair.

  Keenan heaved himself up, and stared bitterly down into a diamond infinity.

  “What happened?”

  “You lost... control?” said Pippa, eyes concerned. “You were out of it, but somehow—by some miracle—you stopped the Buggy before we went over the edge. Otherwise, we’d have been dog meat. Keenan, you’d better let me drive from now on.”

  Keenan nodded, did not argue, could not argue. Below, the Lake of Diamonds shimmered, and seemed to beckon him with a beautiful decadence. However, it just seemed sour now, fake, a cheap imitation of something rank and pointless. What could replace love? Want? Need? Nothing, nothing material mattered.

  He swapped seats with Pippa, and she expertly eased the Buggy back from the precipice. She drove the vehicle away, slowly, getting a feel for the Buggy, and watching for random movements in the spine of the bridge. Gradually, she increased the speed, and Keenan slumped back in his seat, chin to chest, hooded eyes staring darkly out over the Buggy’s battered bonnet.

  Franco touched his shoulder. “You OK, Big Yin?”

  “Yeah,” he grinned, glancing back. “Sorry. Seems I’m not as reliable as I think I am.”

  “Hey, we all suffer shit, man. I would have seen us killed years ago. You and Pippa are the only reason I’m still breathing good clean air. Don’t worry about it, bro’. We’re here as a team.”

  Betezh snorted.

  Franco pushed his Kekra under Betezh’s chin. “You got something to add, motherfucker?”

  “No, no, nothing to add.”

  “I still haven’t forgotten the bad drugs, or the fucking testicular electrocution.”

  “I’m glad I made a lasting impression.”

  “I’ll make a lasting impression in your fucking skull.”

  “Franco,” warned Keenan.

  The Buggy rode the twisting bucking bridge, and Pippa with her innate skill and confidence-inspiring pilot’s eye brought them safely down to the opposite bank. The Lake of Diamonds receded behind them, changing from a sea of stars to a glittering wall, to a line, to nothing more than a twinkling firefly. Darkness flooded back into the underground chamber, which seemed to go on beneath the crust of Teller’s World for ever.

  “What’s coming up?” said Pippa, warily, slowing the Buggy at the approaching wall of black. She turned, glancing at Emerald, who was slumped back, eyes closed, breathing ragged. Pippa shot Keenan a look, as if to say, “she’s deteriorating”, and Keenan gave a single nod. His lips were a tight compress. If Emerald died he would not get his name, but then, did it matter? Did any of it matter?

  Emerald sighed and opened her eyes, and for a moment they were pools of oil before rotating, becoming the bright green Combat K knew.

  “Emerald?” Pippa’s voice was soft.

  “Yes.” She grunted, shifting her weight. The Buggy creaked on battered suspension. Despite her size, Emerald was a lot heavier than she looked. “You are looking at the Lake of Protons, although the description is inaccurate. As we approach, you must avert your eyes; the protons are twisted matter, the deviant material found on the other side of Black Holes.”

  “I thought that was fable?”

  Emerald shook her head. “Twisted Protons are real.” She coughed, a cough heavy with phlegm. Her smile was diluted. “With the right equipment, it can be mined.”

  “What is its purpose?” asked Betezh.

  Emerald turned to him, eyes bright. “Why, little man, it is the stuff of War Machines.”

  Betezh licked dry lips. “There is something wrong here. Something doesn’t fit the puzzle.”

  “It’s dead easy to understand,” said Franco. “You keep your mouth shut, and we get the job done, or I blow your head off. You understand that equation, dickhead?”

  Betezh gave a nod.

  The Buggy continued.

  The wall of black came closer, only it wasn’t a wall of black; there was something on the other side. It was like looking at a billion reflected images, mirror upon mirror upon mirror, all reflecting the same colour but with angular disjoints through every conceivable atom. As Pippa looked she felt her gaze being drawn, wrenched out of her head, and immediately—even from a distance—she got the most incredible pounding migraine. She cried out, one hand snapping to cover her eyes.

  “How will you drive over the bridge?” asked Franco.

  “There is no bridge,” said Emerald. “We must wade the Lake, but everybody has to keep their eyes tight shut, or this place will lever your skull out through your ears.”

  They halted, and Keenan tore a pair of black combats into strips using his knife. Each member of Combat K—and Betezh—covered their eyes with the makeshift blindfolds. Once ready, Pippa cruised the Buggy, and hydraulics ejected floaters. Slowly, the Buggy descended a slope and was soon half submerged in the Lake of Protons. A curious euphoria flooded the group. A gradual ecstasy flowed through sluggish veins, and Pippa, powering the vehicle, felt an orgasm building within her so powerful and intense she could not stop herself; her hand dropped to her groin, felt the flowing wetness between her legs... but instead of the orgasm building into pleasure, it built into—

  What did she feel?

  It was wrong, a basic wrong, like orgasm in rape, being fucked by a father, molesting a child.

  “Get us through this shit!” growled Keenan, panic in his voice, his body shivering violently. “It’s fake, a second-hand false experience. Pippa, put your boot to the floor and don’t you fucking stop.”

  They heard Betezh throwing up over the side of the Buggy, and then scrabbling with his blindfold. He grasped the cloth, pulled it free with a cry, opened his eyes, and st
ared into the surrounding twisted envelopment, into the mesh, a matrix, of the Twisted Proton world.

  Betezh screamed, drool ejecting like vomit from between frozen lips. His eyes grew wide, dangerously wide, and he saw things—bad things—that no human should ever see.

  Franco’s right hook connected, and dropped Betezh into a well of instant unconsciousness. Franco massaged bruised knuckles as Betezh slipped down to lie, half in, half out of the Buggy’s foot-well.

  “Good thinking,” said Keenan, voice sober.

  “I’ve been waiting ages to do that,” said Franco.

  Pippa powered the Buggy through the... it felt like treacle, and offered serious resistance to the vehicle. But, with a howling engine and a slipping clutch, she slewed through the matter. After what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, tyres found purchase on a slippery black slope, and the Buggy lurched free of its elastic prison, wheel-spun up the gradient at 17,000 revs. It leapt like a bird from a cage, soaring through brittle cold air and landing, suspension clanging as it bottomed out, and then screaming for a while until Pippa eased free of the accelerator and finally came to a juddering, shuddering halt. She stalled the Buggy with a cough. It clicked violently.

  Keenan removed his blindfold, and glanced back at Betezh. The man was slumped, limbs useless, mouth open, eyes open, blood oozing from tear ducts.

  “Is he dead?”

  Franco checked for a pulse. “No, more’s the pity. The maggot has a pulse like a tom-tom played by a fitting epileptic after injecting a cocktail of speedballs and acid.”

  “Nice simile, Franco.” Pippa gave him a full-teeth smile.

  Franco beamed. “Thanks.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment, you arse.”

  “I know that, you pussy.”

  “Let’s get on,” said Keenan, rubbing at his thundering temples. Despite not looking at the Twisted Protons, a pounding had come upon him, needles driving into his brain. Even from the edges of peripheral vision, the warped and deviant visual array was affecting him—torturing him—with a visual toxicity.