Redemption Protocol (Contact)

by Mike Freeman

  She turned and swept her hands across the instrumentation panel. An alarm sounded, flaps deployed, a door opened, oxygen masks dropped, chaff and nanoscreen burst around the shuttle.

  She screamed as Ekker grabbed her arm. His breath stank on her face. A bead of spit stretched between his lips. He twisted her arm and wrenched her toward him. His eyes gleamed with drugs and desire, ready to deal out pain in return for his missing leg. His peg-leg, of course. She kicked out and knocked away the metal pole supporting him. Ekker fell backward. His drug addled mind couldn't quite grasp what was happening. She flung herself back out of his grasp. He fell onto his back between her and the exit. She saw the handgun attached to the outside of his suit. One chance. Do something. She darted forward. He swung his arm to block her. She ducked underneath and grabbed the pistol then jumped back. He pulled himself up onto one arm. She thrust the handgun out in front of her, breathing heavily.

  “Don't move you bastard. Don't move a fucking muscle.”

  Ekker's brow creased as he focused on the end of the gun pointing at him. The seriousness of the situation dawned on him.

  “Come on, Weaver. It's just a little fun.”

  Her shoulder hurt and her face stung.

  “I'll give you fun you bastard.”

  Ekker’s face looked resentful and uncertain. He watched her, calculating. He stared at the barrel of Stone's Tregler Five as she pointed it at him.

  “You aren't going to use that, Weaver. Give it to me.”

  She could see him making the drunken calculation.

  “Don't do it, Ekker.”

  A flicker of a smile danced across his mouth. His lip curled. She could see what was coming.

  “Don't do––”

  He lunged at her.

  She screamed and pulled the trigger.

  214.

  Havoc and Forge ran along the curving corridor as they looped toward the center of the building. Further east, the ORC commandos had also broken through the outer layer of Gathering defenses.

  Havoc raised a hand and they slowed to a halt. Havoc walked forward as Forge hung back, watching him.

  “You make me feel rusty.”

  “It isn't that you've got worse, old man. It's that I've got better.”

  “Modest as ever, Son.”

  Havoc sensed a track ahead of him amongst the swirling electromagnetic countermeasures. It was something heavy duty and moving slowly. Given its vector it was probably advancing to take out the ORC troops. Havoc’s microdrones vanished off his battlespace ahead of him. He started to back away, considering his options.

  “Modesty serves no useful purpose, Forge. You told me that.”

  “I was right.”

  Havoc thumbed behind him. They jogged backward down the corridor.

  “Aren't you always?”

  “I thought I was wrong once. But I was wrong.”

  Havoc chuckled.

  “Old ones are the best eh, Son?”

  “I'm still going to kill you.”

  “That's what I like about you, Son. So predictable. So faithful. Like a dog.”

  Havoc shook his head.

  “That's the second time I've been told that today.”

  “You're too trusting, Son, too naïve. You're so easy to take advantage of, it's impossible not to.”

  Havoc lifted his hand to call a halt. They were a kilometer back from where he wanted to strike. Forge dispensed another microdrone behind them.

  “I did what I needed to do to win, Son, that's all. If you don't understand that, you'll never be a winner.”

  Havoc configured the nukes on his micromissiles.

  “I was a soldier, not a butcher, Forge.”

  Forge laughed.

  “It's the same thing.”

  Havoc launched the grid pattern of micromissiles. There was a series of bright streaks down the corridor.

  “Not to me. And I hate you for making me both.”

  Forge gestured at the disappearing salvo of tactical nuclear warheads.

  “Will we survive that?”

  Havoc ran down the corridor.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  Forge shook his head as he ran alongside him.

  “You’re a lunatic.”

  “And you're nothing but a fucking traitor, Forge. Who killed my family.”

  “Every one of these guys you’ve just killed probably had a family.”

  Havoc’s jaw tensed.

  “It wasn't my family. And they weren't stabbed in the back by a treacherous bastard like you.”

  “What you'll never understand, Havoc, is that I welcome the hatred of my enemies. It means I'm doing something right.”

  They passed the four headless corpses and pulled back around the opening in the wall for cover. There as a brilliant flash then the shock wave roared past, sweeping bodies and debris along with it.

  Forge frowned as he leaned back against the wall.

  “Will the ORC troops survive that nuke?”

  “They should. Depends how far away they are.”

  “Didn't Weaver say not to knock out the building in case it stops the beam?”

  “It's only a small nuke, Forge.”

  Forge laughed.

  “You sound like my youngest boy.”

  Havoc’s lip curled in disgust. He activated his jetpack as he rounded the corner and flew down the corridor with Forge behind him. There was very little slag left from the Gathering megatank, just a crater a hundred meters in diameter and a big hole in the ceiling.

  Havoc looked up at the dark copper sky. It was odd. Three illumination flares flew overhead in a cluster, dragged sideways by the wind. He frowned.

  Forge alighted on the run and passed through the fused and distorted wreckage on his way to the next corridor.

  “Come on, Son. I think they know we're coming.”

  215.

  How do you negotiate with God?

  Zuelth looked at the dead scientists. Their bodies were piled up like sacks of refuse. He could smell their burned flesh, even over the smell of the incense near the plinth. He wanted to raise his visor but he was scared it would offend the Redeemer.

  The idea of dying filled Zuelth with dread. But the idea of dying clutching his face with his brain burning until flames licked out of his eye sockets made him feel sick to his stomach.

  He flung his arms forward, prostrating himself in a way he hadn't done since he was a boy. He had to make the Redeemer understand that this wasn’t his role.

  “My Lord, my role is––”

  The Redeemer approached him.

  “Sit up, Zuelth.”

  Zuelth rose to his knees. The Redeemer loomed over him. Zuelth cowered in his suit, sweating and scared. The Redeemer reached for him. Zuelth shrank back in his suit as terror gripped him. Would his impudence cost him his life?

  The Redeemer put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Zuelth, what do you seek above all else?”

  Zuelth’s eyes widened. He knew the answer straight away. The Redeemer was asking Zuelth to state what every Gathering soldier had told their Lord over and over since His return.

  Zuelth spoke in a small voice. He repeated the words that he’d said innumerable times since he’d learned to talk. The words that had meant so much to the countless minions that Zuelth had dispatched to an uncertain fate, but that to him, until now, had been meaningless ceremony. The words that were suddenly invested with deadly intent. He whispered the words his Lord wanted to hear.

  “To die and take my place in paradise, oh Lord.”

  The Redeemer nodded benevolently.

  “Then go, Zuelth, with My blessing. Exhale the spirit of man and inhale the spirit of God.”

  Zuelth nodded. He couldn’t bring himself to look into the Redeemer’s mighty visage. He couldn’t argue with God.

  He walked over to join the others.

  There was a tortured scream as the Senior Scientist lurched back, beating at his face as it crackled and burned. The
three remaining scientists watched him impassively. They knew that attempting to intervene was pointless. The burning scientist stumbled away and tripped over a colleague's corpse, helpfully collapsing straight onto the pile of dead bodies. One less thing to do before the next scientist stepped up.

  Zuelth prayed as he’d never prayed before.

  216.

  Weaver fought for her life.

  Ekker struck her hard across the face. Her head snapped back from the force of the blow. She flailed at him, trying to push him away. Ekker leaned in and headbutted her in the face. She cried out as her head jarred from the impact.

  “Fuck off, Ekker!”

  Ekker laughed. The bastard was actually laughing. Ekker crowed triumphantly.

  “Havoc gave Stone an empty gun! Holy fuck would you believe it!

  Ekker hit her again, this time straight on, striking her forehead with his heavy gauntlet. It hurt, a lot. She fell back, stunned. Warm blood trickled down her forehead.

  Ekker grabbed a fistful of her hair, twisting it and using it to lift her.

  She shrieked in pain.

  Ekker grinned savagely.

  “That's more like it. I hope to hear a lot more of that.”

  He pressed his knife to her throat. She cried out as sparks jumped from the blade and burned her neck. She could hear the knife hiss and hum. She froze, inert. Ekker towered over her. He looked massive in his suit. She could feel his breath on her face. The knife pressed into her neck. She was terrified that Ekker would slit her throat. Tears rolled out of her eyes from the pain of being partly suspended by her hair.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  Ekker’s lip curled in disdain.

  “You're going to blow me and sound like you like it.”

  She spoke through gritted teeth.

  “Fuck you.”

  “And it better be good.”

  “I'll bite it off.”

  He leaned close to her, his eyes wide and demented.

  “You'll try it once. Then I'll fuck your mouth with my gun until it's just your bleeding gums. And you can't bite it if you haven't got any teeth, can you?”

  She tried to resist as Ekker pushed her down, but he forced her easily to her knees. The crackling blade cut against her throat. Her scalp screamed with pain as her hair came out in clumps. She cried out in pain and desperation. Ekker gripped her hair tighter as he casually swapped his knife for his handgun and thrust the barrel into her face. She tried to turn away but he held her hair too tightly. Tears trickled from her eyes. He scraped the barrel against her cheek.

  “Now do I need to warm you up with my gun, you bitch? Do I?”

  She sobbed, helpless.

  “Please, Ekker.”

  “That's better. Please, Ekker. Very good.”

  “Please don't do this.”

  He twisted her head round to face his crotch.

  “Just close your eyes and imagine that it's Havoc. On second thoughts, keep your eyes open and look at me, you bitch.”

  “Don't.”

  He wrenched her hair. She shrieked. He pushed the gun barrel into her face.

  “Now I'm going to shove my cock in your mouth and you're going to like it.”

  “No, please.”

  “Yes, please, Mr Ekker.”

  The crotch panel on Ekker’s suit clicked open. She could smell piss, sweat and something else.

  “I won't.”

  She screamed as he punched her in the face again. Blood from her nose trickled over her lips. The barrel of Ekker’s handgun thrust into her face. Ekker's crotch panel swung aside and his tattooed cock sprang out next to her cheek. She could feel the warmth of it.

  “This is real baby. Oh yeah.”

  The gun barrel pressed into her cheek, cutting the inside of her mouth against her teeth. She tasted her blood, hot and metallic.

  “No.”

  “Open wide and say please. Say it.”

  217.

  Zuelth stood next to the Chief Scientist, struggling to contain his fear.

  The death of the scientists was horrifically graphic now that Zuelth was close by. He desperately hoped that more Gathering crew would appear so he’d have more subordinates to buffer him from the deadly plinth.

  The Redeemer had given them information about mathematical sequences and solutions. Zuelth knew that he should be reviewing that information now, in case the scientists should fail. After all, he had one of the finest minds the Gathering could afford – he just hated to use it. He was a diplomat not a number cruncher.

  Zuelth watched as, with an anguished cry, the Senior Scientist clawed his own face. Blood streamed from his eyes and ears. The veins on his temples pulsated and popped, spraying blood and hissing steam. His eyes half-popped out, half-burst as flames erupted from them. He gave a bloodcurdling scream and smoke belched from his mouth. He reached out toward Zuelth, not quite alive but not quite dead. Zuelth stepped back to avoid his clawing grasp and the tormented scientist collapsed to the floor.

  Zuelth looked at the Chief Scientist, who looked back at him. The body of the last Senior Scientist twitched on the floor beside them.

  The body stopped, dead.

  Neither Zuelth nor the Chief Scientist would demean themselves by dragging it onto the pile of corpses.

  Only he and the Chief Scientist remained. Zuelth tried to maintain his haughty demeanor. He nodded at the Chief Scientist to go ahead.

  The Chief Scientist turned and bowed toward the Redeemer, offering his sacrifice. If the Chief Scientist hoped to get any acknowledgment for his probable imminent sacrifice, he was sorely disappointed. To Zuelth’s dismay, the Redeemer wasn't even watching. Zuelth assumed that their Glorious Lord was disgusted by their failure thus far. Zuelth, on the other hand, was praying for the Chief Scientist's success more than he’d prayed for anything in his life.

  The Chief Scientist readied himself. He bowed his head to Zuelth. Zuelth aimed to sound as dismissive as possible.

  “I trust you will be completely lucid when you act for our Glorious Lord.”

  The Chief Scientist’s face twisted with hatred. Zuelth didn't care. His command would prevent the Chief Scientist from vening God's Glory. Some of the other scientists had stumbled to their fate looking so intoxicated that Zuelth thought they might miss the plinth altogether. Zuelth could tell from the animosity in the Chief Scientist's eyes that he’d condemned him to an agonizing death. Zuelth was content. It was appropriate for the Chief Scientist to do everything in his power to achieve success, even if he had to suffer for it. The Chief Scientist reached his hand toward the Plinth.

  When he was a boy, Zuelth had boasted that he could throw a stone and strike his uncle's falcon on its perch. His friends disbelieved him. To prove his fearlessness Zuelth had flung the stone. Zuelth had turned to his friends to make a scathing remark, he couldn't remember what. He just remembered the look on their faces. He'd turned to see the falcon lying on the ground. He couldn't believe that he'd hit it. It lay there, magnificent and broken, twisting in a circle. Zuelth had prayed fervently for it to live, beseeching their Holy Father to help him. Zuelth prayed now with the same earnest devotion, pleading for the Holy Father’s intervention as he watched the sequences stream across the wall.

  The Chief Scientist was already significantly further than any of the others had got. Zuelth tried to concentrate on the algebraic sequences in case he needed to go next but he couldn't. He was only focused on the outcome. With all his heart he wanted the Chief Scientist to succeed. He murmured his invocation over and over.

  “God all seeing. God all seeing.”

  218.

  Ekker wrenched Weaver’s hair.

  “Open your fuuaaaahhhh––”

  Weaver shrieked as Ekker ripped out more of her hair before releasing it completely. She opened her eyes. Hope soared inside her as Ekker lifted away from her.

  Havoc hurled Ekker backward.

  Ekker crashed into the floor on the other side of the cabin, spreadeagl
ed on his back. He raised his tricannon and Weaver panicked. Ekker's forearm disappeared, replaced by a smoking stump spurting blood. Ekker screamed.

  Havoc hauled Weaver upright and pressed a weapon into her hand. Weaver felt rage surge within her as she took hold of it. She pointed it at Ekker’s face. Ekker stared at the gun. He laughed at her.

  “Fuck you, you pussy.”

  Weaver witnessed herself lower the handgun and shoot Ekker in the crotch. His dick blew off and a smoking hole appeared in his suit. Ekker shrieked in pain.

  Weaver looked at the gun in horror. Her consciousness returned. She threw the gun down, feeling physically sick. Havoc put his arms out. She flung her arms around him as she broke down in tears.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  Havoc hugged her.

  “It's ok.”

  “Oh my God. I thought...”

  “It's ok. You're safe now.”

  “I thought he was going to...”

  “I know. You’re ok. Just breathe.”

  She clung to Havoc. God that had been the most awful experience of her life. Ekker moaned and cried, babbling deliriously in his drug addled haze.

  Weaver’s heart rate normalized. She glanced at Ekker. Ekker clutched his arm and stared disconsolately at his severed dick lying on the floor. His little dick with its distorted tattoo – it looked pathetic.

  Weaver winced.

  “He's hurt. He's really hurt. We should do something.”

  Havoc raised his arm and shot Ekker in the head. Ekker's body twitched and died. As an afterthought, Havoc used his boot to flick Ekker's dick off to one side. Weaver jumped away from Havoc.

  “No!”

  “What?”

  “You shot him!”

  Havoc frowned.

  “So did you.”

  “You shot him in the head!”

  “You blew his dick off.”

  “I can't believe you just shot him in the head!”

  “What?”

  She took another step back.

  “Shit. You shot him. In the head!”

  Havoc looked bemused.