Quake

by Andy Remic

  ‘Mm.’ Carter nodded.

  ‘Seems like Leviathan Fuels are stirring up some interest. NATO’s Fuel Commission are talking about investigations. The oil companies of the world are kicking up a right stink ...’

  ‘So they will.’ Carter gesticulated with his spoon. ‘Imagine, a new fuel springs seemingly from nowhere -best-kept energy secret ever: it’s much cheaper than what’s currently on offer, needs only a minor engine modification costing a few hundred dollars, and fuck me if it doesn’t do eight times more miles to the gallon as well. The oil companies are fucking green with envy!’

  ‘Apparently it’s started a price war.’

  ‘Yeah, and that’ll get worse as the competition hots up. But hey, who am I to give a flying fuck about fat-cat billionaire oil industrialists with wads of banknotes falling out of their tax-free Swiss bank accounts? It’s a free market ... But let’s be honest, if the petroleum moguls had clocked Leviathan Fuel researchers digging LVA out of the rock, then how long would those researchers’ life expectancies have been? Nice man with a sniper rifle, anybody?’

  ‘God, you’re cynical,’ said Natasha.

  ‘I’m just the way the world made me.’ Carter smiled sardonically. ‘Anything else of interest on our little alloy friend?’

  ‘Jam’s still heading up the SAD teams; reports are favourable about the Nex extermination. I’d have thought they would have been wiped out by now, but every time Spiral think they’ve cracked it and the world goes a bit quiet, another bunch spring up.’

  ‘Yeah, like a bad penny. I bet Jam’s tearing his hair out. We’re just lucky the Nex bastards haven’t got Durell any more.’

  ‘He was one insane motherfucker.’

  ‘Tut tut, Nats, language like that from such a pretty face is most unbecoming in a lady.’ He reached over and rapped her knuckles with his spoon.

  ‘Carter! You’ll get B&S juice all over me!’

  ‘Don’t be so soft. Look at me, fucking wrestling with a crevasse a few hours ago and you’re bloody complaining about a little tomato on your dungarees!’

  ‘Wrestling with ... ? Ahhh, that was her name, was it? Nice pair of long legs Miss Crevasse had to her credit. And the way you saved her by mauling her naked breasts with your face was a true miracle to behold. Proper hero stuff, worthy of Hollywood.’

  Carter grinned sheepishly. ‘Hey, can I be blamed if the woman I rescue is naked except for a pair of knee-high boots? Sometimes,’ he muttered, a grim look on his face, ‘you just have to take the rough with the smooth.’

  Natasha moved towards him, on her knees, and grinned up into his face. ‘You’re a bad man, Mr Carter.’

  ‘You’d better believe it.’

  Thirty minutes later Carter and Natasha were packed and ready to move out. Nats had killed the fire, they had prepped both ECubes with SAR signals and now awaited their emergency holiday-destroying transport with some trepidation. Something big was going down, they could sense it; something big and bad and they were going to be a part of it. The tension within the two Spiral operatives was beginning to increase: emergency Spiral meetings on this scale were not called every day - nor even every year.

  Snow was still falling, and Carter and Natasha stepped out to stand beside the Yamaha snowmobile; Carter checked his watch. ‘They’re one minute late.’ He smiled, but even as the last syllable left his lips the sound of a helicopter echoed through the snow above the vast mountainside expanses of sweeping forest, the thump of armoured rotors reverberating through the falling snow.

  Carter tutted. Natasha shook her head, staring at him.

  ‘There’s no excuse for sloppiness,’ said Carter smugly.

  ‘One minute!’ laughed Natasha.

  ‘One minute is one fucking minute. It can mean the difference between life and—’

  Sudden fire illuminated the sky in smoking trails that converged from three directions. There was a scream of engines and a heavy bass boom; screeching rotor sounds destroyed the peace of the forest and a fireball blasted outwards suddenly in a flare of purple HighJ energy ... The Comanche was plucked from the snow-filled heavens by three rockets that ignited it and sent it heaving skywards to hang for long timeless moments. Then it fell, trailing black smoke and spitting showers of superheated metal in all directions. It clattered through the trees, its rotors slicing branches and trunks and whining in screaming deceleration, and then crashed into the ground, crackling in the embrace of a sudden raging blue-white fire.

  ‘—Death,’ said Carter coldly.

  ‘Three rockets,’ snapped Natasha, her Glock in her hand and her gaze sweeping the trees. Carter pulled free his heavy battle-scarred Browning HiPower. His eyes were very cold. ‘That should have been impossible,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ replied Natasha quietly, eyes scanning the forest with unease. ‘The Comanche is supposedly one hundred per cent protected against SAMs. Whatever weapons they used, they were fucking advanced - and fucking invisible. Start the Yamaha.’

  The two Spiral operatives backed towards the RX-16, automatically covering one another’s arcs of fire as they searched for trouble. They were immediately a team, expecting an offensive; they immediately became as one.

  Distant sounds of screaming echoed. The sounds of agony. The sounds of a man on fire ...

  ‘Fuck,’ snapped Carter, firing up the Yamaha. He revved the vehicle and looked back at Natasha. ‘You know we’ve got to check it out...’

  ‘It’s a trap,’ said Natasha.

  ‘Damn fucking right it’s a trap,’ hissed Kade in the dark recesses of Carter’s brain. ‘Go on, check it out, get a bullet in the brain and end up eating soil and you will be worm food, my brother ... go on, do it, let’s see what balls you really have, you dumb-arse fuck-brain ...’

  Carter pushed Kade’s comments from his raging mind. Anger threatened to consume him, but he controlled it. Out there in the snow one of his Spiral comrades was suffering, screaming and dying, and he could not leave him to cook, or to be shot by - who? The Nex?

  Carter grinned a grin that had nothing to do with humour.

  ‘You bastards,’ he snarled as he opened the throttle. In a shower of cold snow-ice, he sped off between the trees.

  Carter knelt warily beneath the tree line. The Comanche had gone down hard, rotors chewing wood and bark, body shell aflame, and now it lay buckled and twisted in a smoking, blazing mess. Carter’s stare swept the opposite side of the small clearing and the trees that had been pulped by the plummeting war machine. Too nasty, he thought. And too fucking open ...

  Crouching, he crept forward.

  And saw the body, smouldering in the snow. The pilot had managed to crawl a short distance from the Comanche’s still-burning wreckage but his HIDSS helmet had been flame-fried to his face, melded to burning skin, blended with charbroiled flesh and muscle and hair. Carter wrinkled his nostrils, almost gagging as he moved closer. That man must be dead, came the unbidden thought. He must be dead ... because to live—

  It did not even bear thinking about.

  Carter paused, gaze scanning the trees once more. Something was wrong, his senses screamed at him. Still he moved forward, and crouched beside the nightmarishly burnt pilot. He forced himself to look down at the scorched blackened face, and only then did the vomit truly force its way into his mouth as he saw eyes watching him from beneath a melted, caked brow and blackened crusted crispy skin ...

  A hand grasped his, a sudden movement that took him by surprise. Looking down, Carter saw that there was no real skin, only an oily, tarry mess of muscle and blood and crisped hide. The stench filled his nostrils and he vomited to one side and heaved until his stomach contracted and spasmed in a fist of horror. He met the pilot’s gaze. The man was beyond screaming and his twitching eyes made only one entreaty and that was ‘Please ...’

  Carter’s Browning lifted and a single shot rang out across the small forest clearing.

  Carter’s eyes narrowed.

  Three figures stepped out of the
tree-haunted shadows.

  Nex.

  Carter stumbled back towards Natasha as the Nex attacked.

  Bullets spat from JK49s and Carter leapt swiftly into the forest, rolling behind a fallen conifer where Natasha crouched. The Nex sprinted towards the destroyed Comanche, kneeling beside the fallen pilot. Their grey-balaclava-clad heads turned as their stares fixed on Carter. They rose to their feet and began to run towards the Spiral agents.

  Carter’s Browning boomed in his fist. One of the Nex was sent slamming to the ground with its blended insect-human brain spreading in a bone-scattered pool of pink snow-mush.

  ‘One down,’ muttered Natasha, taking aim—

  The other two continued their charge.

  They moved fast - inhumanly fast...

  But then, the Nex were not human.

  Natasha fired, once, twice, three times. The Nex weaved left and right, keeping low, legs pumping, JK49s stitching a line of bullets in the log behind which the two Spiral operatives crouched, making Natasha yelp and duck. But Carter’s Browning fired seven times, the gun heavy in his fist, and the second Nex was sent sprawling in the snow with only a gruesome ring of smashed bone where once the masked face had been.

  ‘That’s my boy,’ cheered Kade.

  Carter snarled as the final Nex reached the log and leapt, its sub-machine gun tracking him as the Browning jerked up. Carter could still see the eyes of the dead Spiral pilot, surrounded by melted flesh: the HiPower jolted in his grip and five bullets sent the Nex lurching over him, legs kicking, blood spraying, to sprawl against a tree and fall twisted and dead among its roots.

  Carter climbed slowly to his feet, panting, sweat stinging his eyes and the cuts on his face. Natasha leapt up beside him, licking fear-dry lips. ‘You killed them,’ she said, awed. ‘You killed them all!’

  Carter nodded emotionlessly. Pride was his enemy. And complacency meant death.

  Natasha turned - and saw that ten more Nex had stepped into the clearing.

  ‘Yeah, but here comes the main course,’ muttered Carter as the killers opened fire with JK49s and the two Spiral agents fled, skidding on ice, sprinting as best they could for the sanctuary of the RX-16. Leaping aboard, Carter fired up the engine and with Natasha clinging on grimly he twisted the throttle hard round. Snow spat and streamed from the tracks as they raced off between the trees. Bullets hissed past them, gouging into tree trunks and whistling through branches. They weaved madly left and right, hunched low.

  The firing finally stopped.

  Carter pulled the Yamaha to a halt, spraying snow against a wall of black glistening rock where ice had formed long glittering stalactites. ‘We lost them?’ panted Nats through frozen lips.

  ‘Listen.’

  She concentrated as Carter killed the engine.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘What?’

  And then she heard it. Engines. Screaming engines.

  Carter fired the Yamaha into life once more and urged the machine on hard; snow shot up behind them as compact black snowmobiles with mounted SMGs appeared, weaving through the trees. The machine guns roared, fire flashing from their muzzles, and bullets slapped into trees and snow all around, ricochets striking sparks from the rock wall. Carter ducked and Nats hung on grimly as the snowmobile rocketed through the snow and trees ...

  Carter glanced behind. Through the haze of kicked-up snow he saw at least ten machines pursuing them.

  ‘Fuck. I thought the fucking SAD teams had wiped out the Nex!’ he screamed over the roar of the tortured engine.

  ‘So did I,’ shouted Natasha, clinging tightly to him.

  Carter dragged the RX-16 around, heading up a steep slope, the engine pulling powerfully. The black snowmobiles started to fall behind as the Yamaha sped from the cover of the trees, swaying slightly through banks of snow and then skimming fast over a field of sloping ridged ice. Up they headed, towards another tree line and the sanctuary of the forest. Rocks glittered all around and with some skill Carter dodged through them, setting into a rhythm with the machine, feeling it as a part of him ...

  A few more bullets skimming past reminded him of their impending doom.

  Carter powered the machine on, his stare fixed. Glancing back, he lifted his Browning in his right hand, sighted, fired off ten bullets but hit nothing. ‘Moving too fast,’ he muttered.

  ‘Or maybe you’re just a shite aim,’ observed Kade.

  Kade laughed at him, and that made Carter mad. He gritted his teeth, swerved the snowmobile into the line of trees and suddenly slammed on the brakes. They left a long straight line of grooved ice. Carter leapt free as Natasha screamed, ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  Carter was attaching something to his Browning.

  ‘Remember I was telling you about the mod I got from Simmo? A NeedleClip?’ There came a snapping sound, metal grinding metal. ‘This is it.’ He moved to the tree line where he could hear and now see the swathe of black snowmobiles speeding up the incline, their formation a tight V.

  ‘NeedleClip?’

  Carter glanced back, where Natasha crouched behind him.

  ‘Fucking needle bombs,’ He grinned savagely, holding the Browning two-handed and sighting down the bulky barrel. The NeedleClip had its own sight and squatted above the gun, a small black symbiotic metal cube, its sides laser-carved with a cryptic military designation.

  He flicked a tiny switch with his thumb. There was a heavy deep hum which belied the weapon’s size and Carter pulled the Browning’s trigger. There was a soft click and instead of a bullet, a sliver of metal shot from the NeedleClip, glistening like a tiny, glittering dart as it flashed buzzing low over the snow and connected with the lead snowmobile ...

  There was a searing flash and then a massive boom as the snowmobile and the two that were closely following it were kicked up into the air, spinning, before blossoming into unfurling flaming petals. They soared briefly as the snowmobiles still on the ground skidded to a halt in clouds of powder snow. Then the mangled vehicles fell, pluming black smoke and with their screaming Nex riders clawing at shrapnel-filled faces.

  Heads looked up towards the tree line.

  Carter fired again as eyes went wide and engines howled in hastily revved panic ...

  Another two snowmobiles were smashed skywards, Nex squirming as the exploding metal melted into their flesh. Black smoke blossomed and a crackling like fireworks going off reached Natasha’s ears ...

  The other snowmobiles fled.

  Carter turned to Natasha, but she was staring at the ECube. ‘We have to get out of here, Carter.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Her gaze met his. ‘There’s more of them, up there through the trees. Hundreds of them.’

  ‘Impossible!’ he snapped. ‘Why didn’t the ECube pick it up before?’

  ‘Remember the shields they used, back in Scotland?’ A year ago an assassin had infiltrated Carter’s house and had somehow managed to sidestep not only his own personal defence systems but the all-ranging scanners of the ECube. In essence, the effectiveness of the ECube - a Spiral operative’s major defence mechanism - had been compromised.

  ‘I thought we’d cracked their technology!’

  ‘So did I.’

  Carter cursed and glanced back at the black billowing smoke. ‘We’ve just fucking advertised ourselves.’

  ‘Better than getting bullets in the back.’

  ‘Come on.’

  They ran back to the RX-16, leapt aboard, and Carter started the engine, setting off in a straight line.

  ‘Where you going?’

  ‘Towards them.’

  ‘Are you fucking crazy? The ECube’s registering more than two hundred Nex. We need an airlift!’

  ‘Yeah, and they’ll have one.’

  ‘Carter, they’ll be sending search parties to check out the smoke! And the others have probably commed ahead and told them we’re here.’

  ‘Yes.’ Carter smiled. ‘Last fucking thing they’ll
expect us to do is head straight towards them. If the ECube is picking them up, I’m pretty damn sure they know about it. If they have ECube cloaks, then their technology is more advanced than we suspected ... and there’re more of them.’

  Turning back, Carter opened the throttle wide and slid the exhaust silencers into place. Stealth came at the expense of power, but the machine was still functional as they cruised almost silently through the trees, weaving gently, Carter’s vigilant stare on the lookout for the Nex search parties that he knew would come.

  The engine clicked softly as it started to cool. Carter dragged some fallen branches roughly across the RX-16 in a crude version of camouflage, and Natasha and he set off through the snow on foot.

  ‘I don’t like leaving it behind,’ said Natasha softly.

  ‘Yeah, but we’ll need to get close. The branches should hide it from air obs.’

  Snow had started falling again, more heavily. The forest was quiet, almost silent, occasional falls of snow from over-laden branches crumping in the distance.

  ‘What are the Nex doing all the way out here?’

  ‘An interesting thought.’

  ‘I bet Jam doesn’t know about their existence.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure nobody knows about their existence.’

  They moved warily, guns out, the metal cold even through their gloves. Natasha looked more closely at the NeedleClip, amazed that something so small could pack such a punch.

  The cold was beginning to get to the two Spiral operatives as they weaved warily through the trees. They had to stand stock-still once as snowmobiles thundered off to one side, flashes of black between the distant tree trunks, and then they dropped to a crouch and waited.

  Natasha kept a close eye on her ECube’s scanners.

  Several groups were moving, spreading out.

  ‘They’re searching for us,’ she whispered.

  Carter merely nodded.

  They moved stealthily for nearly forty minutes, creeping from tree to tree, the falling snow their ally, the forest their protector. They halted while Carter carefully removed the NeedleClip and screwed the Browning’s silencer back in place. As they moved off again through the thick snow Natasha watched the ECube, but was surprised when Carter’s hand came up in a ‘halt’ signal. She met his gaze as he put a finger to his lips and gestured for her to wait and be perfectly still.