An Atlantean Triumvirate

by C. Craig R. McNeil

A clatter of boots came from a metal stair case and four men in olive green military dress and short buzz cuts ran into the room.

  “Goddam’ Limeys! Time to kick ass, boys! Time to show those stiff upper lipped morons who’s the boss around here,” yelled a marine as he leapt up the gantry before opening a hatch and carefully climbing inside one of the metal figures.

  Once inside his giant skeleton like suit of power armour, Waldorf “Spike” Gundersson strapped himself tightly down into the narrow confines of his suit jabbing the ignition switch as he did so, and flicking several more switches to his left to activate the feeds to the metal limbs. He peered out through the thin wire mesh covering the eye slits in his armour. Mav, Indy and Snowman were all in their armour. Mav was already moving stepping ponderously forward, white fumes belching from the exhaust stack on the rear of the machine, arm cannon swinging to cover his front line of fire. The garage door was slowly sliding to the side and the sound of battle was no longer muted. A squad of the US Marine Corps finest was backing slowly into the garage as the door opened, the soldiers firing sporadically as they retreated. Seconds later they were dead caught in a thunderous hail of fire that blew chunks of concrete from the nearby wall.

  “Mav! What can you see?” Spike yelled excitedly into his radio microphone as he stepped away from the gantry pushing the heavy metal framework to the side as he did so, gears and pistons hissing as they powered his magnified strength.

  “We got the big guys out there! Hell! We got Nightshade Division!” Mav chattered excitedly as he stepped over the bloody cratered remains of the marine squad, out into daylight and the battle.

  “Hell, yeah!” Spike whooped along with Indy and Snowman. “Lets go do them over!”

  Spike speeded up his steps and, along with Indy and Snowman, stepped out through the gap left by the receding garage door and out into the courtyard in front of the reclaimed Aztec ruins.

  Early morning sun shone down on a nightmare scene. The Nightshade Division soldiers had dispensed with subtleness as they had so often done in the past and come in straight through the front door. The wooden gates had been torn apart by multiple chainsaws. The watchtower on the left side of the gate had been pulled down, two of the thick tree trunks supporting it cut in half. The watchtower on the right hand side had been shredded by heavy machine gun fire. Spike could see blood dripping down from the remains of the three soldiers that had manned the position. The courtyard itself was littered with the bodies of the marines who had died attempting to stop the unstoppable. Many bodies lay cut in half either by a swathe of bullets or a chainsaw. Five night blue armoured figures stood in the middle of the scene of carnage surveying the slaughter.

  “There they are boys! Mav, get back in line now. Don’t let them pick you off, all out there on your lonesome!” Spike shouted excitedly, as he fired a few experimental shots from the large calibre machine gun fitted on his right arm.

  Spike flexed his left arm and the adapted aircraft cannon rattled as it was brought into position. Along the line Indy and Snowman were doing likewise covering Maverick as he stepped slowly backwards from the hunchback like shapes of the British soldiers.

  “Let’s rock!” shouted Indy and out of the corner of his eye Spike saw twin jagged flashes of flame reach out from Indy’s cannon and machine gun. Spike didn’t hesitate and pulled the triggers of his weapons sweeping them both side to side narrowly missing Mav as he did so. Snowman and Mav had also opened fire. Blue smoke drifted into his armour making his eyes water. Hell, the firepower was so overwhelming that they’d blown Nightshade all away! There wasn’t even any smoking remains! Goddamn, that’d piss the white coats who’d been desperate to get their hands on a suit of Nightshade power armour since the Iceberg Incident. Nothing like good ol’ superior US of A firepower to win a fight!

  Indy had stopped firing but the noise was still painful as Mav and Snowman continued with Spike to holler and whoop as they poured lead into where they thought the Nightshade troops were.

  Spike heard Indy yelling something above the whooping. What the hell was that prick shouting about?

  “….not THERE! Christ….”

  Spike heard the panic in Indy’s voice and stopped firing. Mav and Snowman must have heard the same fear because they stopped as well, Snowman stepping slowly forward.

  “Spike! They’re not there! They jumped away! They’re above us, on the roof,” Indy could be finally heard to say.

  Shit. How did they do that? Spike had read the report about the Nightshade soldiers jumping from the dreadnaught Excalibur onto the USS Ice Base Snowstorm, a leap judged to be about fifty yards. This was so far and above the American technology it had been dismissed as the shell shocked ravings of a second lieutenant.

  Spike felt his thighs strain as he forced his power armour into a run, cursing his limited visibility as he did so. Snowman was just ahead of him desperately trying to turn in his cumbersome armour to see their enemy. Spike saw sparks fly from Snowman’s armour and heard the distinctive roar of a gatling cannon firing. Spike smiled to himself. No chance would the gatling’s shells penetrate their armour. The spec had said the US designed armour had to be superior to the British version and that included being able to stand up to the Nightshade Division’s weapon of choice.

  Spike turned, raising his weapons as he did so, and saw the five Nightshade soldiers standing stark black against the early morning light. One was firing in bursts on Snowman. Spike got the impression they were just watching, almost as if they were analysing their new enemy. Up to them Spike thought. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

  The four Nightshade troops not shooting at Snowman jumped into the air and out of Spike's field of view.

  “Where the hell are they now?” Mav shouted. Spike heard random shots being fired into the air.

  “They’re jumping behind us,” Spike said. This wasn’t going to be the easy fight he thought it would be.

  A huge weight pounded into his shoulders causing him to crash heavily to the ground.

  Spike heard Indy screaming “Someone’s landed on me! Get him off!” and then a diamond tipped chainsaw cut through the power armour like a knife through paper, slicing Spike’s head in two from brow to throat.

  Captain James Riley removed his all enclosing helmet with difficulty, the bloody chainsaw fixed to his left arm repeatedly getting in the way. Sweat was trickling down his forehead gathering on his brow before dripping into his eyes irritating them. They didn't have seasons in Central America. It was hot and humid all the year round and this mid April day which would be a nice Spring morning in Blighty was no more than yet another day of uniform sameness here. The sun bleached the sky, burning away the remains of the early morning mists from the surrounding densely green rainforest and blazed down onto Nightshade, unfettered by the protective canopies of the towering trees.

  “Johnston! Echleston! Secure the perimeter! Hood! Check out the American armour.” Riley barked orders out rapidly. “Philips. With me.”

  Riley stepped off the battered armoured shoulders of the deceased Spike's armour and strode through the wide open doors of the garage into the room beyond, taking in everything from the sparking electrical power points in the walls to the fuel drums stacked on the far side next to a bolted shut door.

  Philips wrenched the thick steel door from its hinges and peered cautiously up the stairwell beyond.

  “The way ahead is clear Captain. I think we’ve taken out the bulk of the military force. We should just have the scientists left to deal with.”

  “Let’s move. I want this lab secured as soon as possible. Those stairs should lead straight up to the barracks. The labs are located next door to the barracks.”

  Philips paused. “Sir, why are the Americans building laboratories away outside America? Surely they would be far more secure somewhere in the United States itself?”

  That was a question that had been bothering Riley, his superiors and the British Intelligence services ever since they’d discovered th
e lab on USS Ice Base Snowstorm. There were at least two more American research bases outside the USA besides this one in the Central American rainforest and they were just the ones they knew about. Why? What was being researched that was so dangerous? Poison gas was the obvious choice given the American penchant for the foul weapon that they had used in the Mexican war against the Spanish. The current limbo state of not being quite at war with the United States was as good an excuse as any for this investigative attack on the lab. Which quickly brought him back to his original questions – what were they researching? Riley pushed the question from his mind.

  “Concentrate on the job at hand Philips,” was the only answer Philips got.

  There was a clatter of armour as Philips shrugged and turned up the stairs.

  Riley and Philips moved warily up the stairs and through a bunkbed lined barracks. It was quiet, apart from the drone of distant generators. Riley hated this sort of warfare. He knew the enemy was out there, hiding, waiting to ambush them, waiting for them to turn their backs before shooting. Riley hated cowards.

  The lights in the lab were flickering. The scene of gore and destruction could not be mistaken. It was a large room equipped with what seemed to be surgical equipment. One corner of the room was caged by thick iron bars. The door to the cage lay reeling on a hinge, a crushed body in a white coat lying under the door. More white coated bodies lay around the room. Most were missing arms, legs, heads or all three. Blood splattered the walls and lay slick across the floor in pools of red. Entrails had been pulled out and lay across scattered, broken trolleys like grotesque red snakes.

  The lights flicked off again and Riley heard a familiar hiss, rush of movement, a clatter of something falling to the floor, a rapid click of metal on metal.

  The lights came on again. Philips and Riley scanned the cluttered room looking for the cause of the noise. Nothing moved. Out of the corner of his eye Riley saw something whip round an upturned desk. He fired automatically, shotgun shells blasting the desk to matchwood.

  The lights went out. More rapid clicking of metal on the floor, a moment of silence, a hiss, a whistle of metal slicing rapidly through the air and then a surprised gurgle came from Philips followed by the sound of his heavily armoured body crashing to the floor.

  A piercing guttural scream sprang from an unseen mouth.

  Riley felt something sliced through his armour into his right bicep sending waves of searing pain through his body as he automatically whirled round lifting his whirring chainsaw as he did. He felt the chainsaw effortlessly cut through skin and bone as a set of jaws clamped around his armoured head. With disbelief he felt the heavy metal giving way and sharp teeth prickle along his forehead.

  He swung his chainsaw again and the jaws relaxed and fell away.

  The lights sparked back on. Philips lay on the floor face first with blood gushing from where his throat had been sliced away, his armour clattering as his body twitched in its death throes. Slumped at Riley’s feet was the dark remains of a familiar alien body, its entrails spilling out where Riley had almost cut it in half. Metal blades glittered in the failing light where they sprang from the creature’s hands and feet. Blood spilled from the creature’s mouth that was lined with a vicious layer of serrated metal teeth. Before the light flickered off again Riley saw delicate stitching along the creature’s fingers.

  Riley stumbled out into the light of the corridor. He couldn’t feel anything from his right arm which hung uselessly by his side. Blood was trickling from the gaps in his metal gauntlet. Damn… Every time he came up against those damn creatures he always got his hide kicked.

  There were loud clangs on the metal stairs as Johnston and Hood powered their way up, bursting through the barracks and out into the corridor where Riley stood slumped against the wall.

  Riley noted that Johnston checked for further enemies before attending to him. Good man. He’ll go far. Johnston was asking him something but he couldn’t hear anything above the rush of blood in his ears. He was going to pass out. The wound must have been severe to cause so much blood loss so soon. Riley told Johnston where he had been wounded before his vision went fuzzy around the edges and blackness descended.

  Johnston couldn’t hear what Captain Riley muttered to him but the jagged gash on the armour plating on Riley’s upper arm showed where he had been wounded.

  “Hood, find Philips and then help me with Captain Riley,” Johnston ordered as he undid the complex system of catches around Riley’s battered helmet. The scars on it looked like teeth marks he thought to himself.

  Johnston muttered an astounded curse as he pulled the helmet off and saw the scratches on Riley’s head.

  Hood came back.

  “Philips is dead. Something cut his throat but it looks as if the Captain killed it before it got to him.”

  Johnston concentrated on removing the damaged armoured plate from Riley’s upper arm.

  Distractedly he asked, “Creature? What sort of creature?”

  “Black as night. Almost like a big lizard. It’s got metal claws and teeth. Never seen anything like it in my life. You’d better take a looksee ‘cause it looks like what you and the Captain came across on Atlantis a few months back.”

  Johnston started. What on Earth was one of those damnable creatures doing in an American research lab in the middle of the Central American rainforest? He pushed the question out of his mind. The Captain’s wound was severe, having cut through what appeared to be a main artery from the amount of blood those was flowing out of the deep slash.

  “Hood, call for the pick up and let them know the Captain is in a bad way. I’m going to put a tourniquet on this wound but there’s nothing more I can do.”

  Removing his heavy gauntlets, Johnston quickly pulled out bandages and rubber tubing from the side storage compartment of his armour. The Captain was pale as his lifeblood pumped out of his body and pooled around him. Johnston deftly wrapped the rubber tubing around the man's muscular upper arm and twisted it tight, staunching the blood flow to the injured limb. Applying a bandage to the wound, Johnston despaired as the white material became rapidly soaked red. He threw it away and pressed another one tightly against the wound and, seeing that the flow of blood had lessened substantially thanks to the tourniquet, wrapped it up tightly with a swathe of bandages.

  “Let's hurry it up. Take him outside to the medics. I’m going to check out this body and get Philips,” Johnston said to Hood.

  Hood merely nodded as he effortlessly lifted the Captain’s limp body and disappeared into the barracks at as close to a run as was possible in the armour he wore.

  Johnston fingered the trigger of his gun nervously as he walked into the bloody laboratory. He pulled Philips out of the way into the corridor, a trail of blood smearing across the floor as he did so.

  Walking back into the room he flicked the light switch on and off and the lights stopped flickering.

  Johnston looked at the creature’s body with disgust. He knew he was going to have to take this one back with him. MI7 would need to see this for themselves. He found some sheets wrapped over a bed and tied the remains into the sheets. The serrated claws sliced through the thick sheets despite Johnston’s care and hung outside the bundle, glinting in the overhead lights. Putting the bundle carefully down, Johnston gingerly lifted one of the appendages hanging out of the sheets. The claws weren't bone – they were metal. Incredibly sharp metal too judging by the way they sparked when dragged along the ground. Johnston didn't want to test how sharp they were remembering the gouges in the captain's armour and helmet. And what was this? Stitches? Johnston crouched down for a closer look and observed the neat stitches along the lines of the claws. Surgical implants of some sort. Maybe this is what the Americans were plotting – surgically enhancing the Khadrae into a superhuman killing machine. He dropped the claw which clanged and pinged off the floor and again lifted up the once deadly animal.

  Before he left the lab, Johnston took a quick look around noting how th
e bars of the cell in the corner had been sliced apart and how all the scientists had died with savage cuts to their bodies. Some had even been decapitated. Should have made sure their cages couldn't be broken open by angry Khadrae. Fools. Johnston had no sympathy for people who's sole job was to produce unnatural weapons like the one he now carried.

  No point hanging about. MI6 were on their way in now that Nightshade Division had finished doing the dirty work.

  Lifting Philips’ body followed by the bloodied bundle of his killer, Johnston made his way outside into the sun kissed courtyard.

  The Thorn was a small aerial dreadnaught but only relatively speaking. One of the very small squadron of dreadnaughts operated by Military Intelligence, the Thorn was a specialist aerial dreadnaught in that it was designed to operate behind enemy lines and support clandestine operations. Lacking the heavy main cannon armament of its larger brothers, it made up for it with a range of close support cannon and machine guns that provided covering fire and support for operations when needed. This mission was its maiden voyage.

  The black torpedo shape of the Thorn hung over the courtyard, contrasting sharply with the sun parched dustiness of the ground and the lush green vegetation that surrounded the complex.

  Ramps had been lowered at its rear and front and Johnston could see soldiers struggling to lift one of the suits of American power armour into the hold.

  A major in a black beret saluted as he saw Johnston.

  “Sir, Captain Riley and Sergeant Hood are now on board the Thorn for debriefing.”

  Johnston interrupted before the major could continue.

  “Debriefing? Captain Riley was seriously injured. I hope his wounds are being attended to before he is debriefed.”

  The Major swallowed nervously as the giant loomed over him, blocking the sunlight. Johnston’s anger was apparent and Nightshade Division weren’t known for suffering fools lightly. Especially when they were MI6 stooges.