by Sam Bradbury
They looked at me. I wished I could see their eyes. It’s easier to give someone the needle when you can see his eyes.
‘He said he’d made slaves of the Helghast people. Called you the spineless masses. How do you like that, huh? He was laughing at you guys, played you for assholes.’
‘He brought glory to the Helghast,’ said one of them flatly, the guy on the left, who was more psycho than his pal, had been that bit more generous with the kicks and punches. He leaned forward now. ‘It was the tyranny of the UCN that made us slaves. The autarch ended that, and you do not desecrate his memory with bullshit and lies.’
The combat knife he had at his belt wasn’t secured. That was good intel.
He sure was a fan of Scolar Visari. That was also good intel.
‘Hey, I wouldn’t lie to you,’ I said breezily. ‘Maybe you should just wake up and smell the coffee on this one. I mean, he was one cowardly son of a bitch …’
Opposite me psycho grunt bristled. I didn’t need to see his eyes any more. ‘Oh man, such a pussy. You know what he did – what he did right before we delivered bullets to his gut? Pissed his pants. We had to shoot him just to save him from the shame. My buddy Rico said we should kill him before he shit himself and stank the whole place up.’
Psycho rose to his feet and straight away his buddy was holding him back.
‘Whoa … whoa. Relax, man,’ I jeered.
‘You touch him and Stahl’s gonna kill us both,’ warned the second grunt.
‘Whoo,’ I goaded, ‘that sounds bad.’
‘You shut your mouth,’ spat Grunt Two.
Psycho relaxed a little and Grunt Two let him go. I waited for a beat before saying, ‘Look, all I said was that Visari died crying like a little bitch. If you can’t handle the facts –’
Psycho charged me and threw a punch and, even though I turned into it, it caught me on the temple hard. I saw stars, but slipped beneath his flailing arms and reached with my bound hand to his leg and the unsecured combat knife there, snatched it out of the sheath and plunged it deep into his thigh. Praying I’d hit the femoral artery. Needing to hit the femoral artery.
I missed. He howled in pain and surprise and staggered back, but if I’d been on target we’d already be knee-deep in blood and I’d be one on one with Grunt Two. Instead Psycho pulled out the knife and leapt towards me, and there was no way Grunt Two was going to pull him back from this one. I closed my eyes and waited for the blade.
Then came a sound like a hammer strike on the side of the ship, which lurched violently as I opened my eyes to see Psycho standing with a harpoon protruding through his chest. A harpoon that had, thanks to some pretty fucking precision marksmanship, penetrated the window, then impaled the grunt.
Me and Grunt Two stared at the harpoon sticking out of Psycho’s chest.
Psycho looked at the harpoon sticking out of his chest.
Then with a loud snick the harpoon opened into a grappling hook and Psycho was yanked back, hitting the door of the ship, pinned by the hook, wriggling.
He screamed and struggled. But only for a moment. Then the hook pulled through him, the door was torn off and both were sucked out, the Hig trailing blood and intestines.
The ship listed, the cabin suddenly a vortex. The roar of decompression was deafening and Grunt Two was sent off balance, his assault rifle skittering across the floor. He snatched it up before I could get to it and lurched to the open door – just as an Intruder swung into view.
An Intruder with a ghost standing on the deck. A ghost who was holding a minigun.
‘Rico,’ I shouted.
‘Get down,’ yelled Rico, and he opened up on Grunt Two who dropped screaming in a hail of bullets. The next thing I knew Rico had tossed aside the minigun and leapt from his Intruder and into the Overlord, landing in a crouch on the deck. He was real, he was alive and he was kicking butt and taking names. He had the beginnings of a bitchin’ ’fro and some old guy wanted his beard back, but otherwise I was happy to report that Mr Rico Velasquez was here and he was as bad-ass as ever.
Shame his aim hadn’t improved. The burst from the minigun must’ve snicked a turbine because suddenly the dropship was spinning. From the door I saw another Overlord in trouble, losing altitude with smoke pouring from it, clipping a third dropship as it fell and sending that one spinning out of control too. Seconds ago we had been a convoy of four. Now just one remained as the other three went down.
Which would have been just peachy if me and Rico hadn’t been aboard one of them. With a single movement he sliced my cuffs then was dragging me up and to the door as the spinning dropship fell away from us and suddenly we were launched into space, air rushing around us. I saw the white-crested sea below me. I had time to think that it isn’t the fall that kills you, it’s the landing, when the Intruder slid into position below me. I thumped onto its deck with a back-breaking crunch, and blacked out.
Not for long. I came to with Rico kneeling over me. Which meant I was alive too. In the sky around us, I saw two more Intruders, troops on each of them – the squad Rico had rescued. I caught sight of the pilot on Raider Two and saw a woman’s face. That had to be Jammer. No sign of Narville, though, which meant he’d either been in one of the Overlords that had crashed or …
‘We’ve lost Narville’s dropship, sir,’ I heard from the other Intruder.
‘Damn it,’ cursed Rico. ‘Listen up, people. Pack it in. We are oscar mike back to base. Return to base.’
‘Wait,’ I said, ‘you can’t leave Narville.’
Rico gave me a look that said different.
‘We’ve gotta go after him,’ I pressed. ‘No one gets left behind.’
‘Sev,’ he said. ‘We barely got you. We don’t have the firepower to –’
‘I’m not leaving him behind,’ I insisted, shouting. ‘And if you’re not going to help me just give me a gun and drop me off. I’ll do it by myself.’
Rico sighed. ‘All right, take your position.’ He spoke into his pick-up. ‘Raider Command to all raiders. There’s been a change of plan. We’re going after Narville.’
‘This is a bad idea, sir,’ came the reply.
‘Copy that, Raider One, but we’re doing it. Everybody, buckle up.’
I grinned thankfully at him and hefted the minigun, feeling a surge of something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
We were taking the fight to them now, and it felt good.
Chapter Sixteen
We flew on, across the frozen shores, with the white-crested sea below us and gleaming bergs to our left and right, weaving between the great glittering canyons hewn from ice. The wind lashed at me and particles of ice in the air tore at my face, but I didn’t care. We were going back into action at last. No more running. No more hiding. We were bringing it.
‘So what’s the target?’ I shouted to Rico.
He turned to look at me, his beard and eyebrows speckled white with ice and snow. ‘Stahl Arms,’ he yelled back, pointing, ‘in that direction. That’s where they’ve taken Narville, plus a load of other guys too.’
I thought of Gedge. They’d wanted him alive. Bandit Four, too. And what about the rest of Bandit Recon? Had they been taken to Stahl Arms – alive? If so, why?
‘How do you know all this?’ I bawled at him.
‘Arrogant pricks were a little too proud when they caught you,’ shouted Rico. ‘They got careless with what they were transmitting. This Stahl guy is bad business.’
That figured, I thought. The one recurring feature of this whole shitstorm was Stahl.
We flew on. I was in Raider Command with Rico manning a cannon by my side and De Castro flying. There were six or seven more Intruders behind us, but along with Raiders Two and Three we were the spearhead. Going fast. Hoping to catch up with the Overlord containing Narville.
Instead we met the first of the rigs, where AA guns and RPGs opened up on us, and suddenly the sky that had been almost peaceful was alive with warfare.
‘All right,
people,’ yelled Rico above the noise. ‘Watch your fire, check your targets, Narville’s dropship is in here somewhere.’
Infantry stood on the deck of the rig, raking us with small arms fire, bullets spanging off the hull of the Intruder. I saw the vapour trail of an RPG. Thankfully De Castro saw it too and pulled off an evasive, our Intruder dipping and the RPG passing safely beneath us.
‘Raiders,’ commanded Rico. ‘You are weapons free. Take it to them.’
Like we needed telling.
I saw the grenadier on the deck and found him in the sights of the minigun, squeezed the trigger, reduced him to screaming bloody hamburger. Then I swept the rest of the gantry, taking out more infantry. Albini piloting Raider Three was urging us to shoot out the fuel pipes and I re-targeted, finding them on the belly of the rig, blue petrusite glowing in inspection windows.
The minigun chattered. Ripped them apart. And suddenly the rig was leaning, stricken, as explosions tore along that side.
‘Aroohah,’ yelped Albini from Raider Three as De Castro expertly banked away from the fire and to the other side of the rig where the hostiles were torn between shooting at us and diving to safety as yet more explosions obliterated their position.
‘Area is clean,’ announced Rico. ‘All Raiders proceed to the harbour. This isn’t done yet. Raider Two, lead the way.’
Pulling up at our side came Raider Two and I just had time to see Jammer in the pilot’s seat as she gave us a wink. Then she was nosing ahead, leading us towards the harbour.
‘Hey,’ I shouted to Rico, ‘she’s cute.’
He nodded and grinned, yelling above the roaring sound of that rushing wind, ‘Yeah, she’s cute, and she’s a bad-ass too – so take my advice and don’t go letting her hear you say she’s cute.’
I laughed then turned my attention to the next set of rigs. Like the first they looked as though they were used for mining petrusite but doubled as defensive outposts for the harbour and the main facility of Stahl Arms.
‘Multiple targets, we have RPGs coming in,’ said Jammer over the comlink. Now the sky was a tapestry of explosions, more RPG trails crisscrossing one another, the flare of muzzle flash as infantry opened up on us too. De Castro brought us low so that Rico and I could target fuel pipes again, and once more they buckled and exploded as we strafed them with miniguns, the rig instantly rocked by a series of explosions. Then Jammer had visual on dropships on the rigs deck and Rico was demanding ID.
My heart sank as Albini came over the comlink, ‘Not our bird, sir. Narville is long gone. We’re wasting our time here.’
‘You let me decide that, Albini,’ snapped Rico – and I knew then, if I hadn’t known it before, that I’d missed the hell out of Rico Velasquez.
We raced on. The Higs would have air support soon, but for the time being we were penetrating their defences peachy keen. Was this all they had? We sailed on by as the rig blew up at our six, next chasing an Overlord that couldn’t accelerate quickly enough and fell exploding into an iceberg under the onslaught of our guns.
‘Command,’ reported Albini, ‘we’re approaching Stahl Arms Deep South.’
Now I saw the huge facility in the distance. It occupied a mountain, a sprawling collection of buildings with one central edifice that towered over the entire complex, the whole thing looking less like a factory and more like a city – but a black and malevolent city that stained the mountaintop like a giant oil spill. Below it in the sea were more rigs. And now I discovered why they hadn’t deployed air support …
‘Command, we got major AA resistance on this one,’ shouted Jammer, just as the AA cannons started booming and the three Intruders were in a world of shit.
‘Heavy missile fire incoming,’ yelled Albini. And there was a thump and my world spun crazily out of control as our Intruder spun on its axis.
‘Command’s been hit,’ yelled either Albini or Jammer over the comlink. I wasn’t sure which. We were going down.
We hit the edge of the harbour, the Intruder cartwheeling into the ice. For a moment I was aware of being thrown from the gunner’s seat, like I’d been plucked from it and flung. Then everything went black, my hearing went, my head was full of stars and I was dizzy with concussion.
All around me was the wreckage of the Intruder. I turned on my side and vomited onto the ice, still fighting dizziness and disorientation. I could hear the bang and thump of gunfire. Then from above me the rushing sound of boosters, and looking up I saw the dark shadow of an Intruder. At the same time I became aware of Rico, yelling something …
I saw a body. It was De Castro, and I strained to see whether or not he was breathing. He was lying on one side, an arm outflung and his legs at strange, odd angles. Then I saw the blood spreading from beneath his head. Another one, I thought. Another good man down.
There was a chatter of gunfire from somewhere and a dotted line of tracer fire split my vision and sent the Intruder above us skittering away, dipping violently as it went. But where was Rico? Suddenly I had a lurch of pure terror at the thought of losing him a second time.
‘Hey,’ I shouted. ‘Rico.’
I almost didn’t hear the reply through the noise of gunfire, the roar of the Intruder engines from above. But then I caught a groaning from my left and I did the check: arms, legs, ears, nose, then scrambled to my feet and scuttled over to where he was pinned beneath a piece of Intruder wreckage.
I heaved it off him and he lay there, grinning grimly at me. ‘Now you see why I didn’t want to come in here?’ he croaked.
‘Can you walk?’ I said, and held out a hand as he got to his feet. He saw De Castro and now I got a better look at him too. Poor guy had come through the cockpit of the Intruder by the looks of things; his face and head had been lacerated. Thankfully it had been quick. Rico confirmed it by feeling for a pulse, then nodding sadly.
Now I saw where we were – on an outcrop of the ice. Behind us was the sea and the smoking wrecks of the rigs we’d already passed. Ahead of us the two AA rigs, the harbour serving Stahl Arms and some kind of tanker anchored in the water. Our two Intruders hovered to try and pick us up, but they were already taking small-arms fire and the AA cannons would lock on soon too.
‘Stop trying to land,’ I yelled. ‘Pick us up at the end of that tanker.’
I indicated across what seemed like an endless expanse of icy sea to the forbidding grey hulk of the tanker. At the far end was a deck just sheltered enough from the AA guns to allow an Intruder to land. Getting there – now that was another matter. But at least if we made it we could be sure of a ride.
‘Hang tight,’ yelled Albini, giving me thumbs-up, ‘we’ll see you there.’
He peeled away, Jammer too, and I watched as they flew out of range of the AA guns, ready to swoop in from the other side.
Rico and I looked at each other like it was old times. And I had to admit I liked this a whole lot more than sheltering in the hot and humid jungle, hiding from the Higs and waiting hopelessly for Earth to honour her promises. This way – this felt less like hiding and more like hunting.
With gunfire sluicing down around us we dashed across a gangplank to the tanker. Already Hig infantry were swarming on to the deck and opening fire. And it had begun to snow. It was icy cold and my fingers barely worked as I grabbed the minigun and we moved through the ship, a vast graveyard. Infantry came at us screaming, but we cut them down, a cascade of hot, spent shells pouring from the minigun. They sent a dropship to deploy some poor sap in a jet pack and we took him out. Then guys came at us with RPGs and we took cover and picked them off. All the time we moved forward, firing short, controlled bursts, with Rico scouting ahead then backtracking, till at last we reached the far deck where Rico set off a green smoke signal and we allowed ourselves to believe that we might get picked up.
‘This is Raider Command,’ he hollered into the pick-up. ‘LZ is clear. Get us off this boat. I want all Raiders to move into attack formation.’
‘Copy that, Command. We are inbound
on your smoke. How you guys holding up?’ replied Jammer over the comlink. I liked hearing her voice. Found I wanted to hear a lot more of it.
Rico scowled. ‘How we holding up? Nothing that won’t improve if we could take out those AA guns. Right, Sev?’
‘Right.’
I was looking to the far side of the deck and a dead Helghast, half his skull missing where it had been sheared off by one of my bullets. He was still strapped into his jet pack and seeing it was giving me a cast-iron eureka moment. I walked over to him, through the green signal smoke that parted like drapes for me, my feet clanging on the metal. Bent down to him.
The guns were silent for once. The gunners on the rigs near the harbour no longer had visual so they were saving ammo, but it wouldn’t take long before they sent more troops over to the tanker. It wasn’t like I had time for much training on this thing, but, inspecting it, I thought I could give it a go. Looked like it worked on similar principles to an Exoskeleton. Once again I recalled Dorweiler’s words: think of it like an extension to your limbs. Plus I liked the weaponry: an SR3-88 submachine gun. Nice. Very nice. Yet again I found myself marvelling at the Helghast tech.
I looked over at Rico. ‘What are our chances with so few Intruders?’ I asked him.
‘What?’
He looked over and saw what I was doing: relieving the dead Helghast of his jet pack and then kneeling, as I hoisted the heavy apparatus onto my back.
‘You said yourself,’ I grunted, taking the weight and getting to my feet, ‘if we’re going to save Narville, we need to take out those AA guns.’
‘Yeah, but not …’ He stopped, mouth dropping open, ‘Oh, you’re out of your mind.’
I stood there getting used to the feel of the pack. And you know what? It wasn’t at all heavy when you became accustomed to it.
‘Look, Rico,’ I said, ‘if I stay low and under their fire, then I think I can get close enough to take them out with charges.’
The Intruder arrived. Rico knew how stubborn I could be and we didn’t have the time to argue. He climbed aboard, shaking his head, then retrieved a set of demo charges, which he tossed to me. I caught them and stowed them, grinning at him gratefully.
