War Machine (The Combat-K Series)

by Andy Remic

  “I can’t go on,” wept Pippa, her mad uphill sprint dying.

  Keenan dragged her roughly along. Ahead, Emerald and Cam had reached a square, black platform. Keenan glanced back, grunted, and emptied twenty bullets into the face of a reptilian metal cat. Shards of alloy twisted back, peeling open like a flower and the beast tumbled back down the metal hillside, and rolled away, to be trampled under claws.

  Pippa stumbled. Keenan whirled, hurling grenades into their midst. Then they were running, and explosions rocked the metal world. Creatures were flung upwards and outwards, living shrapnel, limbs torn and bodies shred. Jaws snapped at heels. Pippa powered alongside Keenan with grim determination, sword in hand, the blade a single gleaming molecule.

  Keenan felt the weight of mass behind him, and imagined more than felt hot breath down his collar, knowing that death was a microsecond away. He opened fire again until the MPK clicked with a dead man’s bone rattle. A few more steps, he thought, a few more pain-filled steps to sanctuary and haven and...

  Something slammed his back. He went down and rolled, coming up and lashing out to crush metal with hard bone knuckles. He lashed out left and right, smashing fists into metal faces. Beside him, Pippa was hammering her sword in a glittering arc, slicing heads from torsos and limbs from trunks, and for a split second the beasts halted their charge in the face of this joint ferocity. Then, together they sprinted for the platform. New jagged cuts and fresh blood streaked Keenan’s face, from razor claws. The two remaining members of Combat K slumped at Emerald’s feet, defeated.

  The metal beasts spread out, silently, surrounding the platform. Keenan could smell their hot oil stink like fetid breath. He blinked a lazy blink, reached into a pocket, and with shaking fingers lit a bedraggled home-rolled cigarette. Smoke plumed. He laughed a manic laugh. “Shit,” he said.

  The creatures bunched, tensed, and Keenan continued to laugh his crazy laugh as Emerald raised pulsing hands above her head.

  Electric lightning flickered and discharged in thundering bursts around them, smashing creatures into puddles of molten metal. Keenan and Pippa stared at Emerald, and in the blue flickers and white flashes, beyond the cracks and thumps of raw energy flowing from dark vaults above her tensed body, her frame flickered skeletal and she was, without a shadow of a doubt, inhuman.

  With a gathering roar, the sentinels charged.

  Everything spun in great, lazy circles. Colours wafted gently in and out of focus, concentric rings of pastel shades overlapping, interloping, criss-crossing and mixing like smoke. Pain came, pulsing in parallel to the rings of colour, the bands of shade and the cacophony of beauty and agony. He felt his fingers twitch, like the first jolts of electric shock therapy. Spasms made his fingers dance, although he couldn’t see them. He felt them, though, jerking and twitching, the tendons in the backs of his hands pulsating and writhing agonisingly like eels in grease. These uncontrollable rhythms moved up his arms and he wanted to scream but couldn’t control his lungs. He felt his heartbeat quicken, drumming like thunderous applause in his inner mind, and soon—he had no concept of time, so it could have been seconds, could have been a thousand years—every muscle and tendon in his body was twitching, writhing and coiling, and he was sure his body must be spastically jerking, an epileptic fit without the epilepsy.

  His eyes flared open, body shooting up into a sitting position.

  Betezh coughed up a ball of phlegm the size of his fist, and watched it roll and nestle greasily in his lap. “Ugh,” he muttered, and wriggled from under his own organic produce until it slopped into the footwell of the Buggy. He looked around, head muggy, wondering where he was, what he’d been doing, and... and...

  Events flooded back, from the distant drifting memory of Franco’s escape from Mount Pleasant, right up to the ejaculation of his mind by the Proton Lake. A wooden tongue probed lead-lined walls, and Betezh spat a few times on the rocky ground outside the Buggy. Then he crawled around until he located a bottle of water. He took one long, long drink, and then another. He emptied the bottle, and tossed it aside. Where is everybody? he wondered idly.

  Betezh climbed tentatively from the vehicle, his limbs like elastic. He placed his hand on the bonnet, and the engine was still warm, but not hot. So, how long had he been out? And why had they left him? Then he saw the answer, his eye catching the narrow pathway worming its way around the Lake of...

  What had they called it?

  The Lake of Desecration.

  He laughed weakly, glanced at the Buggy, and wondered at his options: ahead, around the narrow path? Or should he take the Buggy and head back through the Lake of Protons? Betezh shuddered. He’d rather eat his own vomit than face that again. In fact, he probably already had.

  Anyway, even if he managed to get back, he’d have a lot of obstacles to overcome. And, if he reached the Gunship alive, would he be able to pilot it from the mine-riddled atrocity that was Teller’s World?

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. He staggered weakly to the rear of the Buggy, and lifted the boot. He rummaged inside, past all manner of accumulated crap: spare wheel, Buggy jack, a box filled with electronic components trailing wires, an ice axe, a can of WD40. Betezh found a satchel, oil-stained, but still a satchel. “They’ve bloody left me here with nothing,” he moaned. He lifted the ice axe and looked at it: a good weapon, but not exactly a sub-machine gun. Placing the axe to one side, he rummaged again. He found some old tins of what looked like army rations, and again what looked like camping implements. Betezh grimaced, teeth grinding. “Why me?” he asked the silent cavernous vault. “Why do I always get the bum gig? What is it? God’s eternal joke? Oh, there’s Betezh, he seems to be doing OK, let’s fuck his life up in another new and interesting way.” He rummaged again, and came out with what could only be described as a sexual implement. He frowned. “Where the hell did this Buggy come from, anyway?”

  Betezh salvaged what he could, including a long coil of partially hidden TitaniumII climbing rope—unbreakable!—and picking up the ice axe, wondered how long it would take to catch up the others. He shivered. He didn’t want to be stuck down here alone. And he certainly didn’t want to end up under attack. He glanced at the axe. It was long and blue-handled, and the blades were chipped. It had seen some use.

  Still feeling weak, dehydrated, his head spinning from his altercation with the stuff of stars, Betezh climbed carefully up onto the ridge and looked out across the silver expanse of motionless lake. He shivered, feeling an essence of doom seeping into his bones. “Not good,” he muttered, “not good at all!”

  Time seemed to flow without meaning as Betezh followed the narrow pathway, dropping and climbing, undulating and weaving. It could have been minutes or hours, but he finally came to the break in the narrow ledge and peered with a scowl at the jump. He knew he couldn’t go back, but to go on meant making what looked like an impossible leap. He stared at his axe, and rope, and glanced up at the rocky expanse, wondering if there was some way he could scale the wall and shimmy across. He tried a few half-hearted attempts at scaling the wall, but a rock climber he was not, and he knew that perseverance would only end in failure and probable death, his death. He put the axe and rope on the rocky floor and shuffled to the edge of the jump. He shook his head, retreated, cursed, and kicked the axe in a fit of temper. The axe scudded along the rock, striking sparks, hit the wall, flipped, and sailed out over the silver lake. It disappeared, was enveloped. Betezh stared in disbelief at his lost axe, his one and only weapon, gone! He danced a little dance of fury on the spot, aware of how ridiculous he looked, but so infuriated that he no longer cared. “I’ve been punched and smacked, and stapled and poked, and jiggled and broken, and mind-fucked... and now this! Can’t go on, can’t go back, and I’ve lost my bloody axe! Ahhhhh!” There was a lot of frustration in that scream. Betezh sat down, legs hanging over the ledge above the lake. He stared down at the silver motionless platter. He blinked. Something seemed to be happening.

  Slowly, bubbles eme
rged. Then, from the depths of silver, rising an inch at a time, glided the axe. Like Arthur’s sword emerging from the Lake, proffered by the Lady in some esoteric ritual, the ice axe glooped from the clutching silver fluid, coated as if with a rubber encasing of whatever filled the lake, and it hung there, only partially submerged. Betezh stared at this phenomenon in wonder, mouth open, shaggy brows touching. He watched the ice axe for a few moments, unsure of what to do, and then the axe wiggled, as if wielded by someone with a lack of patience. Betezh frowned harder. The axe wiggled again. “Get me out of here,” the axe seemed to be saying. Betezh lifted his coil of rope, tied a loop in one end, and with the finesse of an untrained Rodeo star, lassoed the axe-head on the fifth attempt. He pulled. There was resistance, a lot of resistance. Betezh gritted his teeth. It’s my damned axe, he thought with a stubbornness that would put a mule to shame, and I’m going to have it back! He pulled and tugged, and heaved, sweat pouring down his face, and the axe finally moved... and attached to it, was a hand.

  “Ugh!” spat Betezh, and immediately stopped his pulling. The hand, and the axe, started sliding back under the silver platter. The axe started to wiggle frantically.

  Betezh stood up, looping the rope around his waist and tying it tight. He began to heave, using his considerable strength. The axe and the hand moved across the lake towards him, and then finally started to break the surface. There were a series of popping sounds, and a face emerged, unrecognisable, until it broke through the rubbery layers of silver gunk.

  Betezh nearly dropped the rope.

  It was Franco Haggis.

  “It’s you!” he squawked, staring down into a face filled with the sort of rage he’d only ever read about. It was animal, primal, a snarling fury with a willingness for genocide.

  “Get me the fuck out of here!” roared Franco. He was taking deep panting breaths. His face was beetroot, bulbous and straining. The muscles of his arms writhed as he clung to the axe, as if fighting some terrible force beneath the Lake of Desecration.

  Betezh started to pull, and then paused. It was a long pause. It was a pause of careful consideration. He stared down at Franco, and understanding passed between the two men. This did nothing to ease the temper in Franco’s furious face.

  Betezh hated Franco and wanted him dead. Why, then, would he seek to rescue the psychopathic, insane bastard from a final resting place called the Lake of Desecration? Wasn’t that the one place Betezh wanted Franco to actually stay?

  Betezh gave a shark’s grin. “How’s it going down there, mate?”

  “Pull me out,” commanded Franco.

  “Actually, I’m considering my delicate position.”

  Franco glared up from his tenuous grip on the battered ice axe. His ankles were still ensconced in the lake, and small dribbles of silver clung to his clothes, face, and hair. “Your position, Betezh, is one of control. It’s up to you whether I live or die. Does that make you feel any better? I am at your mercy.”

  Betezh nodded.

  “Why didn’t you drown?”

  “Pull me up and I’ll tell you.”

  “What was down there?”

  Franco gave a nasty, toothy grin.

  “OK. We have a deal.” Betezh hauled on the rope, and Franco walked his way up the wall of rock and reached out, grasping Betezh’s hand. Betezh hauled him over the final lip, and they both fell back and lay there, not looking at one another.

  “I don’t know why you did that,” said Franco, his voice a caress.

  “Neither do I.”

  “I don’t believe you’re that curious.”

  “And you’d be right.”

  Franco levered himself onto one elbow, and stared at Betezh. “You saved my life. Thank you. You’ve proved you’re still a Combat K man. I owe you one, mate.”

  “You owe me nothing.”

  Franco shrugged, climbed wearily to his feet, and stared down at the lake. He spat, and his spit was silver. “Fucking thing. A fucking curse, that’s what it is.”

  “Franco, why didn’t you drown?”

  “Because it’s not a fluid, it’s an organism. You can breathe inside it, but believe me, it’s not a pleasant experience. It’s not somewhere you’d like to take your mother, that’s for sure.”

  “Were there enemies down there?”

  “Sort of. The... whatever the fuck it is... has jelly things that come and try to eat your face off. I found a lot of bones.” His face looked suddenly grey, weary, old, “Thousands of bones.”

  “But they didn’t... eat you?”

  Franco pulled a Kekra quad-barrel machine pistol free. It was scarred like an old warrior. He gave an evil smile. “Let’s just say I persuaded them otherwise.”

  There was a crack like splintering bone like snapping tendon like crushing skull like rock on flesh like steel in bone. Another crack echoed, reverberating hollowly, and Keenan could smell fire and burning, scorched metal, and scorched flesh. He expected to be dead: mashed, pulped, and flattened, but he opened his eyes to find he was in a metal cell, a cube, a room. He blinked, then turned, and saw the confusion in Pippa’s eyes. There was a low growling sound, and they both looked through the darkness at the figure of Emerald.

  No longer human, she revealed her true form.

  Back on Ket, as she twisted and transmogrified, she had shown echoes of her true form, of her alien reality. Now, however, all human flesh, her human disguise, had gone, and she stood as what she was: Kahirrim. Her arms and legs were gone; her body was a simple oval, ridged with black armoured scales, out of which four heavy legs with pointed armoured tips emerged. Her face was a part of the central body, green eyes glowing above armoured mandibles, which clicked softly, rubbing together and gleaming with saliva. When she moved it was with a fluid powerful grace, an insect motion of incredible strength.

  Keenan felt his mouth dry. Panic welled in his breast, but he savagely forced it down. He met Emerald’s green gaze. He locked onto that gaze, and ground his teeth.

  “We are here.”

  “Yes,” said the creature. “I am home. My power has returned. I have been released from thrall, from my curse. You brought me home, Keenan. You have fulfilled your part of the bargain.”

  “Where are we?” said Pippa, staring around. A ramp led up from the small dark room. Rust streaked the ramp. She heard hisses and thumps in the distance, like... machinery, operating machinery.

  “I performed the Shift. Once within range, my power flooded me, wiping away all vestiges of entrapment. I brought you through with me, through to the Second Plane.”

  “Where did the machines go?”

  “There are two planes of reality, of existence, on Teller’s World. They are two places, occupying the same physical dimension, and yet they are split, operating at different frequencies, different bandwidths. The machines are not allowed here, in The Factory. No machines are allowed here unless they are partof The Factory. It is against the Law.”

  Keenan and Pippa were tense, weapons not quite pointing at Emerald. With very slow, deliberate movements, Keenan changed the magazine in his MPK. He allowed the empty mag to hit the metal ground with a booming thump.

  “You have nothing to fear from me,” said Emerald. Her jaws clicked. “I know I attacked you on Ket, but I was controlled, abused, raped, violated. Here I am Whole again, here I am One again. I am a machine: a magician, a prophet, a soothsayer. I am an element from deep beneath The Mountain, and I am Home.”

  “You made me a promise,” said Keenan.

  “Yes.”

  “Will you honour your promise?”

  “Yes. I am searching now, tracing the Stems back through a reality curtain. The Threads are long and diverse, and it will take a little time. You must be patient. Come with me.”

  They moved up the ramp, and The Factory stretched out before them, around them, above them, below them. Every cubic inch appeared to be filled with machinery. Huge towering machines reared off like skyscrapers, each one infinitely complex: parts moving, g
ears spinning, shafts turning, oil pumping through clear pipes. The floor was a circuit, tiny glimmers of gold flashing through conductive channels. Keenan and Pippa peered at the house-sized machines around them, and hanging above them. They stared with slack-jawed awe at the complexity of the vast, surreal, stunning world into which they had stepped.

  Emerald led them forward, four legs clacking on the metal floor as they moved between vast towers of machinery. And yet... it was mostly silent, ghostly, eerily quiet. Sometimes bangs or knocks drifted to them, and sometimes the thump of metal on metal, but mostly The Factory ran like a ghost machine.

  “What do the machines do?” whispered Pippa.

  Keenan shrugged. “Cam would tell us, if he was here, if he could have made the Shift.”

  “I still don’t understand that,” said Pippa. She looked pale, white, lost in this vast place.

  Keenan nodded. “Physics was never my strong point.” He hefted his MPK, and stared at Emerald’s gliding, rhythmical body, as it moved ahead of them, leading them down wide boulevards, through a city that was a factory, a machine that was a world.

  “She wanted us to help kill her brother, Raze: the one who imprisoned her, and took away her power.”

  “Yeah. It hadn’t escaped my mind.” Keenan took out a narrow bedraggled cigarette, put it between his lips and lit it. Smoke plumed. He took a heavy drag, closed his eyes for a moment, then glanced at Pippa. “You want some?”

  “Yeah.” Like awed kids they followed Emerald through the mammoth metal streets, towers and machines rearing above them kilometre-high. They smoked, and they stared in disbelief, and then they relaxed into a companionable silence.