by Andy Remic
Gun.
His fingers curled around the Browning, carelessly tossed by Feuchter onto the alloy bench and left there in a fit of arrogance. Now his fingers curled around the heavy familiar weapon, around the heavy grip of his 9mm brother and he rolled onto his back, gun up and pointing at Krael who suddenly halted, dropping to a crouch—
Krael laughed.
Carter pulled the trigger.
The gun kicked as a bullet flew from its barrel. Krael flicked left and the bullet smashed into a bank of computers. Sparks flew. Carter rolled, the Browning coming around for a second shot with his broken sternum sending searing pain through his body—
He heard the metallic clicks - and despite the protest of his body he dived as the other three Nex in the room opened fire. Carter rolled into a metal panel with a boom, then scrambled behind a low bench and peered over the edge as guns blasted and sparks flew. The Browning was smashed from his hand, and a punch knocked him sideways.
Carter landed heavily, all breath knocked out of him. Acid pain ate him whole. He laughed through a mouthful of blood and saliva as the shadow of Krael loomed over him.
‘Let me,’ soothed Kade. ‘I can take this fucker.’
I can take him on my own, snapped Carter, slipping a long darkened blade from its hidden home in his boot. In a normal situation Carter never had to resort to knives ... but this was a far from normal situation and he was fast losing faith and patience and strength. Krael loomed above him and Carter slammed the dagger up hard into the warrior Nex’s groin, feeling the blade part flesh and muscle with consummate ease. Blood flushed warm and crimson over his fist and he dragged the knife to the side before pulling the blade out. Krael staggered, then slumped slowly to his knees. Carter rose, bathed in the Nex’s blood, reached back and hurled the dagger across the ops room. It drove into the eye of one of the Nex holding Natasha - without a sound it toppled forward onto its face and twitched, a huge pool of blood gathering around its head. Bullets flew at Carter, and he ducked as sparks kicked up by his head. Natasha, screaming, was dragged from the room by the two retreating Nex and everything was suddenly silent—
Except for the moaning, writhing form of Krael.
Carter crawled to his feet and checked quickly around. He found the gun, slippery with blood, and moved to where Krael was squirming. The Nex’s hands were coated in deep red gore. He looked up at Carter, his face a snarl, and licked at thin white lips.
And Carter felt—
Sorrow. Not anger, nor hatred. Just sorrow for this poor wretched creature at his feet.
He lifted the Browning. Wiped sweat, blood and saliva from his hand.
And placed a bullet in Krael’s face, ending the Nex’s pain.
CHAPTER 25
MORTAL COIL
Slater sat in the boat, frowning to himself. He checked his watch. Jam had been gone too long - far too long He peered down into the churning waters, but could see nothing. He heard a shout from far above. Glancing up the wall of black metal in front of him, Slater saw a pale round face; it disappeared.
‘Great,’ he muttered.
There was a whiz and a splash beside him.
Slater cursed. Glancing up, he saw the pale face again. Hoisting the heavy machine gun, he fired twenty rounds; some zipped, ricocheting, from the wall of black ship metal. Slater wasn’t sure if he had hit the target. The pale face disappeared in any case.
‘Gone for reinforcements,’ Slater muttered. ‘Shit. Shit shit fuck. Jam, you arse, come on!’
Carter limped warily across the operations centre where computers churned and groaned to themselves. One wall was glass, and looking down he could see a mass of activity; it had to be the ship’s bridge. Carter could see Feuchter and Durell, the white globe spinning between them as they directed their New World Order. Natasha was not there.
‘You arrogant cunts,’ he spat and hoisted his Browning in his blood-encrusted fist. He checked the magazine. Then he checked the other magazines stowed about his person.
He had bullets. Lots of them.
Carter smiled.
‘Let’s dance, Feuchter,’ he said. And stepped warily from the room.
In the corridor, Carter could hear heavy-machine-gun fire. There were booms from the cruiser’s big guns. Distantly, he could hear other explosions and the scream of engines.
‘Doing your work well, eh, Jam?’
‘He’ll do a better job than you,’ whispered Kade.
‘Where is Natasha?’
‘They’ve taken her to the bridge. To Feuchter. Everything is in a panic; somehow the DemolSquads have knocked out the navigation systems; the ship cannot steer except with the help of the QIII.’ Kade sounded sulky; bitter.
Carter moved along the corridor, which sloped down. He came to steps and warily picked his way down their metal surfaces. He heard something behind him. Ducking into a hatchway, he watched a Nex rush past. The door to the bridge opened: Feuchter stood there, a look of anger and frustration on his face. Natasha was standing behind him, hands taped together, a warrior-caste Nex to either side of her. Behind, the QIII’s representation of the world spun as the processor went about the final rounding-up of global electronic control...
Durell was dictating a message to the leaders of the world; Carter caught phrases such as ‘incredible destructive technology’ and ‘surrender all military currency’. He spat on the floor and gripped the Browning even tighter.
‘Well?’
‘The Demolition Squads are all but destroyed. They are retreating now, fleeing into the dark and the rain - but the thirty-two scrambled Russian Mig30s will be here within three minutes; they will finish off the last dregs. ‘If only they knew who was issuing their orders now!’
‘Good,’ said Feuchter, smiling and glancing towards Durell. On the spinning globe of light he could see the distorted, angry, shocked, disbelieving faces of the world’s leaders. Durell’s cracked black hand was raised in a mocking salute, a gesture of victory ...
Boots thudded along the corridor, and another Nex sprinted into view. He skidded to a halt in front of the smiling visage of Feuchter. But Feuchter could read something ... something amiss within those bright copper insect eyes...
‘What is it?’
‘A bomb has been planted,’ said the Nex calmly, eyes glittering.
‘What kind of bomb is it?’ snapped Feuchter. ‘Come on, what kind of fucking device?’
‘Our sensors read it as a micro-nuke neutron device of unspecified yield, magnetically attached to the underside of the ship.’
Feuchter’s eyes widened. ‘We need to get somebody down there. Now! You hear me?’
The Nex ignored him. ‘We must vacate this vessel.’
‘Won’t our fucking armour protect us against this?’
‘The formulation of the SPQ plating is incredibly strong. However, the blast will explode gas and air underneath the whole of the ship; it doesn’t matter how strong our armour is against bombs, there will be no water to support the cruiser’s weight. The ship will break itself in half.’
Feuchter stared, dumbfounded.
A million thoughts whirled through his brain.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could hear Durell’s triumphant ranting and see the black claw raised in the air in defiance of the world, in celebration at conquering the world ...
And all this through a tiny processor.
Feuchter lifted his gun; a single shot through the eye ended the Nex’s report. He turned to Natasha and smiled a thin cruel smile. ‘It would seem your friends had an ace up their collective sleeve, Miss Molyneux. They’re not running away from us, they’re getting free of the fucking blast zone—’ He gestured to the Nex holding her. ‘Give her to me...’ He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her roughly towards the door.
Feuchter hauled Natasha off the bridge.
Carter stepped out behind them.
‘Let her go, Feuchter.’
Feuchter turned, Natasha held between him and Carter. He r
aised his gun and started firing, a mad smile creasing his lips, his brow furrowed in concentration. Carter dived sideways, back through the hatchway and into a wide metal chamber, sparks kicking up around him. A flattened bullet, ricocheting from the wall, spun like a circular razor across the top of his forearm - there was a moment when the wound was nothing but a narrow strip of red, then the muscle parted and blood gushed out. Carter clamped the wound with a curse and dragged himself to his knees. He heard running footsteps. He tore a strip from his shirt and bound it tightly about his forearm. Blood soaked through in an instant. Gripping the Browning Hi-Power 9mm, he climbed unsteadily to his feet. His mind swam: loss of blood, constant pain, and a severe pounding at the hands and boots of Krael had left him weak.
‘It’s also left you slow,’ sneered Kade.
Carter said nothing. Licking salty lips, he pushed himself forward and peered along the corridor; he could hear a bustle of insane activity from the bridge. His snarl went tight and muscles stood out like ridges of steel cord along his jaw.
He glanced after the fleeing form of Feuchter who was abducting the woman he loved.
And then towards the bridge—
And the processor that was intent on destroying the world.
‘Fuck it.’
He strode onto the bustling bridge, past a huddle of Nex all intent at their terminals. He broke into a sprint as he heard Durell’s voice triumphantly saying, ‘... And we will spare their lives ...’
The Browning touched the back of the robes.
Carter could feel the body beneath the cloth.
Durell froze.
‘But I will spare no fucking lives,’ spat Carter as he pulled the trigger.
The bullet smashed into Durell’s back. It ploughed its heavy way through his heart, exploding from his chest in an eruption of breast-shards, and left a spiralling trail of fine red spray up through the centre of the QIII-generated world display.
Durell collapsed.
Everything seemed to go silent on the bridge, as about forty Nex turned their attention towards Carter. He took a single step forward, glanced down at the QIII cubic processor, levelled his Browning and sighted with one eye closed.
‘It’s been a long fight,’ he muttered. ‘Now it’s game... fucking... over.’
He put ten bullets into the processor as a distant scream of ‘No!’ echoed from a Nex behind him. Bullets smashed the cold black QIII cube into a billion insignificant harmless fragments that blew violently outwards in a black mist.
The light-globe representation of the Earth shimmered and was gone.
‘You’ve been hacked, fucker.’
Sub-machine guns and pistols blasted.
Carter sprinted, head low, as a Nex with a submachine gun cut ten of its fellow officers in half and stood, mute, wondering at its own stupidity. Bodies crumpled to the ground. Carter raced into the corridor with bullets kicking up sparks behind him and bounced from the wall, groaning long and low to himself as blood seemed to spurt from five or six wounds in his battered body. Then, gathering stored power from some reservoir of energy that he did not know he had, fuelled by the thought of Jam’s micro-nuke and with Kade screaming obscenities in his mind, Carter sprinted as if his life depended on it.
Which it did.
Carter stumbled madly down the corridor in pursuit of Feuchter and Natasha.
‘You are slow and weak, Carter,’ mocked Kade. ‘You cannot beat Feuchter now - but I, I can wipe him out for you. I can rip out his heart. I have strength you could never dream of - come on, Carter, you have had your fun, now let me out to play.’
‘I can do it alone,’ snarled Carter.
He stumbled forward, rebounding from wall to wall. His sternum clicked with every jolt, making him want to cry out. He halted, fell to his knees, and vomited on the metal floor.
‘You are dying,’ mocked Kade. ‘I don’t like to say it, but I told you so. And that nuke is tick-tock ticking. Jam did his job well. You only have, ohhh, round about one minute and twenty seconds to get off this fucking ghost ship ...’
Carter spat out sour-vomit saliva.
Bullets kicked sparks from the floor behind him.
He heaved himself to his feet, swaying, and pushed on at a weary pace, stumbling, smelling his own stink. His boots thudded dully on metal walkways, up stairs, and to the door that had granted him entry. He heaved it open— More bullets came at him, striking sparks from the door’s metal rim; Carter dropped to one knee, Browning out and kicking in his hand. Feuchter was standing beside a waiting black helicopter and he dragged Natasha into the aircraft as rain pounded all around them.
Carter stepped out into the wind and lashing rain—
And looked around, dazed.
The skies were filled with distant fire and machine guns roared from all around. Most of the DemolSquad helicopters had retreated but a few had remained, buying time for their wounded fleeing comrades, sweeping in to drop bombs on the cruiser’s booming gun turrets, keeping close so as to try and make the ship’s weapons ineffectual. Nex in their small black helicopters fought short vicious gun battles against the raging sky. As Carter stood, mouth agape, a flaming Nex helicopter plummeted into the sea -closely followed by a wounded bullet-smashed Sikorsky, flaming, out of control, and heading straight towards—
Carter.
With a yelp he started to sprint for cover, all pain suddenly forgotten. The machine howled down from the sky, trailing fire, its guns blasting out of control. Bullets drilled a line of dents along the deck beside Carter, a parallel sprint as the machine crashed close behind him. a noise like thunder rocking Carter’s world as an explosion and hot gases filled his senses and he did not look back, dared not look back—
There was a whiz whiz whum as Carter ducked, still running insanely with all pain and wounds and everything fucking forgotten now in this race for survival. A stray helicopter rotor flashed low over his head, so close that he felt the violent wind of its passing, a twelve-foot razor intent on his decapitation. The rotor clattered onto the deck up ahead and Carter turned to see the burning wreckage too close for comfort, thick black smoke pluming up into the sky, flames sizzling in the ice rain.
More bullets whizzed around him. Carter growled, glaring at the helicopter up ahead. It jumped into the sky and Carter could see Natasha struggling inside with Feuchter. He punched her in the side of the head, knocking her against the glass of the cockpit.
Carter, ducking low, sprinted for the Comanche.
Two Nex ran at him. The Browning’s bullets smashed them from their feet, pulverising their faces. Carter did not even break stride. As he reached the helicopter, it was with despair that he saw the bullet-riddled fuselage.
‘It has been sitting in the middle of a battlefield,’ said Kade primly. ‘You’re lucky it’s still in one fucking piece!’
Carter clambered up and dropped into the cockpit. A lot of the instruments had been smashed, he noticed as he hit the engines. There was a grumble, and a whine. They did not fire.
‘I don’t fucking believe it!’ Carter howled.
He punched the dash, then calmed himself. He tried again.
The twin 1380-shp LHTec turboshaft engines burst into life, and Carter lifted the screaming, groaning, wounded Comanche into the skies; it vibrated alarmingly, its engines howling. All around was a chaos of gunfire and flames and explosions; water dripped in through the holes in the cockpit.
As Carter gained altitude, he realised - with horrifying and undeniable finality - that the DemolSquads were being slaughtered. The cruiser’s cannons had inflicted a massive toll and the Nex helicopters were dancing among the DemolSquads, picking them off—
Carter’s mouth tightened in a grim sour line. His stare locked on the dot that was Feuchter’s helicopter; it had headed out low over the waves and had then circled, describing a broad arc and returning to observe the outcome—
Carter powered the Comanche forward.
The killer ‘copter dived howling towards Fe
uchter’s small black machine. Carter flicked open the controls for the MiniGun and then realised, in horror, that he could indeed take the helicopter out easily. But that would mean slotting Natasha easily too...
Anger and frustration gripped his soul.
The Comanche, one of the greatest aerial war machines, could not help him perform this final task, this final act of revenge and justice and need. Feuchter had to die - but Carter did not have the weapons to do it... or, rather, his weapon was too bad ...
Lights flickered across the console.
He had a fuel leak; he could see in the HIDSS display on his lap that avgas was pissing from the Comanche’s fuselage. Carter forced the helicopter on in desperation.
Feuchter saw him coming and banked his own machine, on-board machine guns opening fire. Bullets whizzed past to left and right, and ate a line up one flank of the Comanche. Still Carter urged the aircraft forward and something, some inner sense made him eject the cockpit canopy in a hiss of hydraulics; it folded to one side to avoid the flashing rotors overhead and dropped away, shattered glass tumbling away into the sea. Rain and ice lashed down at Carter through the thrumming of the rotors, soothing him with their cooling numbness; then wind filled him with insane exhilaration as he veered right to avoid a head-on collision and banked the Comanche in a high wide sweep.
Guns clattered behind him.
Carter suddenly realised there were two small black helicopters on his tail; he realised they must have been flanking Feuchter, protecting this being who was their leader—
Guns hammered again.
The Comanche took more hits.
‘The fuel…’ hissed Kade in warning as the avgas spray streamed away behind the wounded helicopter ...
The Comanche lifted rapidly, gaining on Feuchter’s thumping black machine as it made its way back towards the cruiser. And then everything happened at once—
There was a low, deep sound, almost beyond hearing.
The world seemed to shake.
The cruiser jolted, as if stung, as the neutron micronuke planted by Jam detonated. There was a strange underwater roar, an aquatic scream; bubbles erupted and light and fire danced beneath the ocean, spreading out like the tentacles of some great luminous leviathan. The warship lifted and a rending, tearing, screaming sound of stressed steel ripped across the skies - huge cracks appeared down the cruiser’s flanks and it split, the midship dipping and the prow rearing into the sky on a gush of suddenly boiling water and steam, a massive split ‘V’ of steel revealing lights and compartments, tiny toylike items within the massive groaning structure—