War Machine (The Combat-K Series)

by Andy Remic

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it. You’re better to me alive than dead.”

  “Ditto.”

  Pippa came next. Without pause she took several steps and leapt, body graceful, spine arching, and landed lightly—in perfect poise—on the opposite ledge. A few loose stones fell, tumbling down, end over end, swallowed. Pippa gave a tight smile, then turned, and gestured to Franco.

  “Come on.”

  “I don’t know about this,” he grumbled.

  “Come on.”

  “That’s a big jump for a little fella like me.”

  “Just do it, Franco.”

  Grumbling and mumbling, he back-tracked along the ledge, then turned and narrowed his eyes. He felt his heartbeat quicken. Palpitations thundered through him, through his heart, drumbeats in his veins, in his head, in his soul.

  “Bugger.”

  With sweat-slippery hands he ran, a curious crab-like sideways sprint along the narrow ledge with eyes squinting and lips tight and teeth grating and grinding. He reached the edge, reached out, reached out for life and sanctuary and felt himself detach from the rock path, sail through the air and twist as he had seen the others twist, but he knew as he left the rocky anchor that he wasn’t going to make it. Franco’s jaw worked, a snarl leapt across his face and he stretched out stretched for life and land and the wonderful beautiful paradise of rock that lay just a few feet in front of him. He watched, wide-eyed, as if in detached stop-motion and saw the look of realisation on Pippa’s face. He saw her sprint, leaping, her belly scraping rock as her arms stretched towards him and his twisted disjointed flight and their fingers connected, slid in a mesh of slippery sweat and tight black gloves and wham Pippa’s hands connected, closing tight. Franco swung down and slammed into the rock wall and rebounded, grunting, all air knocked from him. His face smashed against the rock and stars fluttered in his eyes as he realised—as he felt—the sweat from his hands, bleeding through their contact and...

  He started to slide from Pippa’s grip.

  He gazed up into her eyes.

  “Franco!” she hissed, panicked.

  “I should have worn my gloves,” he scowled.

  “Franco! Climb up me!”

  But he was sliding, slipping and could feel their bodies and hands moving inexorably apart. Pippa’s grip was iron but it was not enough. Franco’s boots scrabbled against the rocky wall, body twisting squirming seeking purchase and life but fingers glided and parted and Franco was kicked backwards eyes still connected to Pippa’s in an umbilical, forcing them into a final terrifying union. He saw the shock slam her face with realisation and understanding and he smiled. He gave her a final smile, and there were tears in her eyes. His smile said, “It’s OK. I’ll be OK.”

  Franco hit the Lake of Desecration. It parted with icy precision and he was sucked down and under and vanished instantly. The silver platter eased lazily together. It knitted perfectly, becoming a solid sheet of glass gloss.

  Franco was gone.

  Chapter 18

  The Sentinels

  “No!” screamed Pippa, lurching forward with a useless grasp, as Keenan grabbed her belt, and hauled her back. She fell into his arms, head against his chest, eyes closed, weeping. Keenan leant, peered over the side of the chasm. Thirty feet below, the silver gave no indication it had just eaten their friend; complacent light glittered from a blank surface.

  “Son of a bitch,” snarled Keenan.

  “We must move,” said Emerald. “There is more seismic activity; I can feel it building. This ledge gets more dangerous with every passing second.”

  Keenan whirled, eyes meeting those emerald orbs. He saw her lack of empathy, her lack of compassion, and understood her status. She might appear human, but there was no humanity in her alien skull.

  Keenan and Pippa moved up and down the ledge, calling out for Franco. Minutes passed, a few minutes ticked over into ten minutes, twenty, and he did not resurface. There was no movement on the Lake of Desecration. It had him, held him, ate him, body and soul.

  Eventually, Emerald touched Keenan’s shoulder. There was a painful urgency about her, like a junkie needing a fix. “We must go,” she said. “He is dead. The Lake has him; there is no escape.”

  “I can’t believe it,” said Pippa, her cheeks still wet with tears. “He’s gone. He’s dead.”

  Keenan simply nodded. His face was grey, lips cruelly compressed. “Let’s go,” he said, and crouching, transferred many of Franco’s bombs to his own pack. Then, with an exhalation of frustration, of anger, of sadness, of loss, he tossed the flapping, useless sack into the glittering silver below.

  He didn’t stop to watch it sink.

  Another half hour of torturous edging along the narrow rocky path saw an end to the Lake of Desecration. The ledge took a sharp drop, which Emerald, Keenan and Pippa leapt, boots cracking against the rocky floor. Then both remaining members of Combat K glanced back towards the broad plate, shimmering opaquely behind them.

  “The bastard,” said Keenan.

  Pippa nodded, shouldered her stuff, and set off across the narrow platform in pursuit of Emerald. Again the ledge dropped, the roof came down, and walls closed in, until they were in a tunnel large enough to take a FukTruk. Then, suddenly the floor ended, dropping away into darkness. Emerald stepped off the edge, landing lightly ten feet down, and Combat K followed her down what were, to all intents and purposes, huge steps blasted from the tunnel floor. They descended fifty of these huge steps, each one lurking just beyond the edge of darkness, and testing a person’s faith in the unknown, until they finally dropped from the last step into an ankle-deep sludge of viscous fluid. Keenan stooped, and sniffed his fingers.

  “Smells like bad oil.”

  “The Woods of Mekkra,” said Emerald, gesturing broadly with her hand. As their eyes adjusted to the gloom, both Keenan and Pippa had a growing awareness of an esoteric scene spread before them. Huge metal trees hugged the edge of vision, twisted sculptures of iron and steel, titanium and lead, their trunks thick slabs gleaming dark with oil, their branches angular and irregular, bone-like titans searing away from severed trunks like the disjointed limbs of diseased alien behemoths. Keenan walked forward, Pippa close behind, their eyes taking in the massive sweep at the edge of the woods. The metal trees hugged their vision, their vista, spreading away in a mammoth tangle of angular wire branches. None of the trees had leaves, but metal detritus covered the synthetic woodland floor, a carpet of needles and splinters, of tangled wire and broken bars. It was a surreal vision, all bathed in a gleam of oil, and Keenan found himself blinking, holding his injured ribs, his mouth a dark crease, as his eyes tried to focus and find a path through this insane jungle of metal. A smell wafted up to greet them. It reminded Keenan of old engines, leaking engines, machinery, factories, black stains on his hands, oil in his hair. It made him shiver, remembering old times, remembering bad times.

  Emerald came up behind them; her eyes seemed to glow.

  “Our last obstacle,” she said, so close her breath tickled Keenan’s ear.

  “It looks difficult to penetrate.”

  “There are... things living inside.”

  “What kinds of things?” asked Pippa.

  “Creatures of metal, machines. They are sentinels. They protect this place. They will not appreciate intrusion.”

  “We have to cut through the centre?”

  “I know of a path, of sorts. It is a seam through the centre, holding the metal woods together. You need to keep your guns and bombs primed, and your wits about you. To sleep here is to die.”

  “Will our weapons work against these sentinels?”

  “The creatures here are extremely hardy. Let us simply hope bullets are deterrent enough. Follow me.”

  Shouldering packs, Keenan and Pippa followed Emerald along the edges of the metal woods. Trees spread before them, dark and oozing evil. The smell grew stronger, hot oil, shards and shavings, filling their senses with a cloying aroma t
hat made them sick to their very stomachs.

  All the way along this impenetrable smash of woodland they saw things moving, scampering, half-witnessed visions, fleeting glimpses: the shake of a branch, a hollow squeal of twisted tubing, metal claws raking barbed wire, the rhythmical splash of dripping oil.

  “Here.”

  The woods opened, a dark narrow gash winding off into the interior. It was awesomely dark, and a fearsome cold wind blew from deep inside. “It’s like a creature,” said Pippa, shivering, and pushing close to Keenan. Unconsciously, his arm circled her shoulders, and they stood there, intruders, feeling alien and out of their depth. With the ice wind came doubt, and with the doubt, a loss of self-belief.

  “The belly of the beast,” agreed Emerald. “You need to focus your strength. This place is not for the faint of heart. Part of the design brief was to instil terror and insecurity into the hearts and minds of any who would come here. After all, it guards a terrible prize.”

  “Design brief?” Keenan raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes. I designed this place. I created it.”

  “So you will be safe?”

  “I never envisaged having to breach it without my powers, without, shall we say, my natural armour. I am not the creature I was; I am weak, and I am frail. They may not be able to kill me, but the sentinels that lurk here could spin webs, entrap me, drag me down into deep metal burrows, and lock me away for a million years. The Woods of Mekkra are a place of suffering, of torture, of torment. Keenan, my advice to you is that anything that looks dangerous, is dangerous. If in doubt, kill it.”

  Keenan gave a thin smile. He unstrapped a heavy D5 shotgun from his back, and started to fill the chambers with quad-blast compact shells; it could hold eighty. Then, snapping the weapon together and stowing away his MPK, he gave a single discreet nod. “No problem,” he said.

  The path allowed only single-file movement, and the trees closed in tightly around them, razor branches slicing at faces and WarSuits, which buzzed softly on impact. Tangled wire gathered and squirmed around their ankles, attempting to trip the group. Emerald led the way, with Pippa at the centre, her eyes desolate and filled with an uneasy, growing horror; and Keenan followed at the rear. Cam said he would make himself useful and scout ahead; he zipped up the dark path and, within seconds, had disappeared.

  “I hope his sensors and weapons work,” said Emerald. She turned, glancing over her shoulder, eyes connecting with Keenan’s pale weary face.

  “He’s a tough cookie,” said Keenan.

  “Yes, but the machines here: if their hatred is measured on a scale of one to ten, and we are like annoying insects to them, irritants, down near number one: soft flesh merely to be punctured and sheared and parted. Well, machines, other machines, and especially sentientmachines intruding will explode from the top of the scale.”

  “Why?” said Pippa, voice unnaturally quiet.

  “It is not something I developed, but something the sentinels here acquired. They seek to protect their self-awareness. They view other sentient machines as a massive threat.”

  “So, they’re likely to attack Cam with a vengeance?”

  “I guarantee it,” said Emerald.

  Darkness flooded the world like blood oil. The metal trees rustled softly, metal on metal, razors on glass; the creaking of branches was the cracking of tubes; the rustle of twigs was like a slow bending of metal panels, a crackling of foil, a denting of armour.

  They moved deeper inside, and became aware they were being watched. Sometimes, eyes gleamed within the depths of the woods, pale ovals of silver or steel, unblinking, surveying the group from a modest distance: gauging, watching, evaluating.

  “It comes,” said Emerald.

  They heard it, claws raking the metal pathway, and Keenan whirled, eyes hooded, tongue darting to moisten dry lips as his shotgun came up, and he made ready. It leapt, in huge bone-jarring bounds down the path. It was long and sleek, with scales like ridged metal armour; it resembled a large cat, but with a corrugated body like a caterpillar. Huge jaws dripped black oil. Pale eyes were fixed, and a low rumbling, a growl of engines, preceded it, as it bounded for the attack.

  Keenan stood his ground, as the large creature bore down on him, smashing through metal branches, slamming aside razor twigs. Keenan lifted his D5 shotgun, felt Pippa cowering behind him, and pumping the weapon, he stared into metal eyes and saw a reflection of fear in those multi-faceted orbs.

  He pulled twin triggers, and saw the creature flinch, veering to one side and stumbling, as the high-velocity shells slammed its head. Keenan sprinted towards it, shotgun still booming as he fired shot after shot into the metal beast, and it squealed, an inhuman sound, rolling to its back and slamming against the trees under the onslaught of violent shells. Legs kicked, the body undulated with a sound of tearing metal, and Keenan was there, his boot on its throat and the shotgun’s barrel’s against its face. Those eyes stared up at Keenan, pleading. He hesitated. Oil gleamed, dripping from long, slightly curved fangs.

  “Keenan!” screamed Pippa, and instinctively he pulled both triggers, jerked back by the recoil, and only then saw a long tail hovering behind him, a sting the size of a fist dripping black-tar toxins. The shells at such close contact slammed a hole through the machine’s head. The body started to spasm, twitching, and tiny white sparks of electricity discharged up and down its scales.

  Keenan turned, and saw Emerald watching him. She gestured to the trees. Thousands of eyes were watching from the dark confines. Keenan shivered.

  “A test?”

  “Yes. Come on. We must increase our speed. Can you run?”

  “You bet,” snarled Keenan, as Pippa placed her hand flat against his cheek and gazed into his eyes.

  “You did well.”

  “I killed it.”

  “Didn’t you feel it? The pull of its eyes? It tried to hypnotise you... it certainly did me. I was immobilised, paralysed. You have a stronger mind than you think, Keenan. It couldn’t hook you.”

  “So their weapons run deeper than simple tooth and claw. I’m beginning to lose my sense of humour with this place.”

  “I lost mine years ago,” said Pippa bleakly.

  The surreal eyes in the darkness of the metal foliage stayed on Combat K as they moved further and further into the Woods of Mekkra. They travelled in silence for a while, with only the sound of their boots clumping the metal pathway as it twisted and turned. Emerald did not speak. She seemed filled with purpose, with a jiggling energy after her previous display of weakness. After a while, sickened by the oppressiveness and claustrophobia of the place, Pippa glanced back at Keenan, his face drawn and grim, both hands gripping his shotgun like a totem.

  “Talk to me, Kee.”

  “What about?”

  “Anything. This place is driving me slowly insane.”

  “I can’t believe Franco is dead. He was... more than a brother to me. I’ve had friends before, you know the score; people come and go, moving in and out of your life; friendships blossom and friendships die. Sometimes you have to be brutal, when somebody close betrays you, attacks you, brutalises you... but Franco, Franco was different. Franco was a lodestone. Franco was not just the man of the moment, but a man to walk the mountains with.” Keenan sank into a sullen silence.

  “You know,” said Pippa, “on occasions, by God, he wound me up like a spring. He knew exactly which buttons to press, exactly which dials to turn, but I always understood that it was little Franco being the pain in the arse he always was. I think, when I was back on Five Grey Moons, on Hardcore, I always knew you guys were alive. I knew you were OK, you could look after yourselves. And, despite our differences, Keenan, I did think about you, did care about you, but now, seeing Franco die like that, it was... shattering.”

  “You don’t realise what you’ve got until you’ve lost it.” Keenan’s voice was quiet. He was picturing, in his mind’s eye, a universe in which his little girls hadn’t died; they’d grown, matured, gone to un
iversity, met fine young men, borne healthy robust children who would call him Grandpa...

  Cut short. Cut dead.

  “It’s funny,” said Pippa, “the number of missions we’ve been on. We’ve faced terrible odds on a multitude of occasions... and yet, deep down, I knew, knew that we would pull through. I think somehow I developed an immortality complex. We couldn’t be beat. We’d dive in, get the job done, get the motherfuck away. Franco’s death has... changed me.”

  “Me too,” said Keenan. He sighed. “I feel my whole life has become... pointless. I seek—ultimately—an empty goal. I’ve considered it, a few times, wondered what drives me, because it can only be something dancing along the edge of sanity.”

  “I thought revenge meant everything to you,” whispered Pippa. She stopped, on the metal path in the metal woods. Eyes blinked at her from a surrounding metal mayhem.

  Keenan shrugged. “What will it achieve? Will I feel any better? Will it bring my family back?”

  “No,” said Pippa. Her voice was a wind-blown whisper. “We could always stop, stop right now, turn away from here, backtrack, and leave this place, this horror, this world. We could go somewhere, somewhere the war didn’t touch, somewhere beautiful. We could raise our own family, Keenan. We could begin again.”

  “No. We’ve come too far.”

  “You can never go too far, Keenan.”

  He shrugged, and grinned, a sudden boyish grin. “Anyway, we’re fucked now. There’s no easy way out of this shit, and I don’t think our ancient friend over there would take kindly to us suddenly reneging on the deal. She says she can give me the name of the killer. Well,” he took a deep breath, “despite misgivings, it’s something I will have to do.”

  Pippa touched his arm. “This information, it might get you killed,” she said, concern glittering in her grey eyes.

  “Then so be it,” growled Keenan.