by Andy Remic
The three female squaddies stumbled back, and as Fizzy slammed shut the BaseCamp's door they caught a glimpse of hundreds more advancing from the night. Within seconds, there came thuds and bangs and clangs. Dents quickly appeared in the thick steel, like bulges in a balloon, and the three women stared at one another.
"This can't be happening," growled Fizzy, face lit in an eerie manner by the glow of the Nape's flickering nozzle.
Olga gestured to the BaseCamp's five-inch plate-armoured door. "It not just happening. It getting worse!"
They could hear a fizzing hissing sound. Even as they watched, droplets of acid-molten alloy rolled down the interior and started to melt through the floor.
"We need to get the hell out of here," snapped Shazza.
"What about Franco?" said Olga, eyes hard. "He's out there. Somewhere. On ze other side of those things."
"He chose to leave," hissed Shazza. "The dickhead."
"We have to reach him!"
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes!" There came a crunch. Fizzy and Shazza stared at where Olga's hand had crushed tiny finger-shaped dents in her D5 shotgun. They glanced at each other.
"Let's get off the ground first," snapped Shazza. "Then, if we're still alive, we can get a lock on the ginger midget."
They ran down narrow alloy corridors, thumping them shut in retreat. BANG BANG BANG went the doors, sealing the three women further and further in the belly of the metal tomb. Olga had fished out her PAD, eyes scanning millions of frequencies. And even as she ran, pounding along, girth squeezing through narrow apertures, bosom wobbling frighteningly, she was intent on the task of locating Franco which technically should have been very, very easy. She cycled through comms. Everything was dead. Franco had, digitally at least, vanished.
"Bugger," said Olga.
"Strap yourselves in," cried Shazza, pulling at her harness as they reached the cockpit. "It's going to be a wild ride when the BaseCamp turns back into a DropShip! It was never designed to do it carrying human cargo. We're supposed to be outside. This is supposed to be a simple, non-threatening mission!"
She slammed the keys, and the BaseCamp vibrated savagely.
On the screen before Shazza symbols flashed in blue. Then red.
Behind, down the metal corridors, they could hear doors being wrenched apart. The Heads, well, what they lacked in size and stature, they made up for with ferocity.
"There's only two doors left," whispered Fizzy.
"The BaseCamp won't change back," snapped Shazza. "Something has to be damaged."
"We must get out of here!" roared Olga, eyeing the door warily. Her hands were sweat-slippery, panic writhing on her fat face like the contortions of a stroke victim. More clangs echoed from the BaseCamp's interior.
"There's a trapdoor. Down to the Giga-Buggy." Shazza pulled out of her harness, hair sticking to her sweating brow, and dropped to her knees. She hoisted open the trapdoor, peered into the gloomy subterranean space, then dropped lithely through. Fizzy followed, with louder clangs ringing in her ears, and Olga stared at the space, then down at her enormous belly blubber. "Bugger," she muttered, threw down her shotgun, and jumped, wedging tight in the trapdoor space and grunting, locked in position, her legs kicking below, arms flapping above. Wedged.
She felt Shazza and Fizzy grab her legs and start to heave. Her belly squidged and slopped, but overhung the trapdoor square by many inches and for the first time in her life Olga wondered about the wisdom of a diet.
"I'm stuck!" she bellowed.
Muffles came from below. Again, her friends tugged on her, leaving claw imprints in her fat leg flesh.
There came a clump. Olga lifted her head, little eyes fixing on the final door. She licked nervous lips, and suddenly realised her position. She'd thrown down her weapon, leaving herself unarmed.
There was more tugging, but Olga's eyes remained on the alloy door. Then there came a thump and a dent appeared. With a hissing sound, acid started to eat through the portal and Olga started to scream and bellow, struggling and wiggling, twisting and pushing as below hands pulled at her sturdy calves and wobbling thighs.
"They're getting through!" she screamed. They would eat her. Eat her face, her eyes, her head. Olga shuddered. Nobody should have to die like that. She cracked her knuckles, and with a grim scowl, thought to herself, Well, I will take zem with me!
Below, there came the roar of an engine. Olga increased her frantic struggling, eyes growing wide as she realised with a bitter taste on her tongue that Fizzy and Shazza were abandoning her. Leaving her to die. Leaving her to be eaten by those terrible, genetic mutations...
I cannot believe it, she thought sourly.
I can't believe they'd run away...
Saying nothing, Olga continued her frantic silent struggle, eyes locked morbidly on the door. Long streaks had burned through with acid. The alloy portal quickly resembled silver confetti streamers. Beyond, filling the corridor like an explosion in a mannequin factory, were hundreds of bouncing spitting wild-eyed scraggy-haired nurse Heads. They bounced and charged and sprang and leapt. The doorway groaned. Olga had only a few seconds left...
Olga heard the spinning of tyres, could smell a hint of exhaust fumes; and she knew.
Knew now, that she was all alone.
She was going to die, alone.
It was raining boulders, a storm of jagged rock, a torrent of giant stalactites tumbling and crashing around him, obliterating everything into pulverised stone shards. Keenan could see Elana's blood, leaking from beneath the large boulder which had crushed her, and his mouth was dry, his brain bitter, and his eyes narrowed as anger coursed his veins. He was sick. Sick of being used. Sick of being bullied. Keenan gritted his teeth, and, glancing up, stepped out. Fuck it, he thought. So what if I die? So what if I am crushed? I will get to join my dead girls, be with them for all eternity. What care I for the problems of Quad-Gal?
He laughed then, a sound verging on the manic, and with head held high he walked across the crumbling hall. Rocks and boulders slammed all around him, but like a man blessed, a man with an intuitive gift, he passed through the crumbling Cathedral untouched.
Standing on the platform, he sailed up through colours and he could feel a mammoth animosity, bearing down on him... Keenan blinked, the alien substances in his veins surging and roaring through his mind. And he could see, and he could feel, and the Dark Flame burned in his heart and Keenan could see VOLOS for the first time and knew, knew his life was strange and odd and old, as old as Leviathan. And with a certainty, and surety, as clear as night follows day, death follows life, Keenan knew VOLOS could not see him, he was invisible, and more, Keenan knew that VOLOS feared him.
Up soared Keenan, his hands outstretched through the swirling colours and mist, and all around him the world roared and Keenan, flying blind, trusting to Fate, landed at a random platform and walked along a narrow tunnel, and out into the dark fresh night...
Outside, the Rockfall was stuttering now, dying, the rocks from the sky becoming fewer, more staggered, smaller in size and ferocity. And then the holocaust from the heavens abated, and everything was still except for a pall of desert dust hanging above the beaten ground. Keenan climbed a nearby dune, and turned.
Around him spread a sea of dust, swirling, disturbed, and Keenan watched the Cathedral, now Elana's tomb, crumble and crack, toppling in on itself. Eventually the rumblings and violence subsided, until an eerie silence rolled across the desert. Keenan scratched his chin, and considered his position.
What had happened in there? Had he been guided?
He looked at the backs of his hands, criss-crossed with tiny scars from a thousand different battles, a myriad of ancient wars. Never had Keenan been so reckless; never had he given in to intuition, to another sense, so readily and with such little care for his own self-preservation.
I should have died, he realised.
But you did not.
I should be buried in
that tomb of rock.
But you are not.
His eyes played across the desert, and with a click of his tongue, he stood in a quick, fluid motion. Energy surged through him. He felt young again, whole again, awash with a strength which had gradually bleached away over the years. Keenan felt more powerful than he'd ever felt. It was a feeling he liked, and he revelled in the dark energies whipping through his veins, heart and mind.
He turned. Orientated. Snake. Ed. Maximux. Keenan grimaced, and clenched his fist, cracking a few knuckles. Those back-stabbing treacherous whores. When Keenan had finished with them, well. His eyes shone dark in the desert gloom.
Well, thought Keenan. They'd be better off dead.
Keenan crouched in the sand, fingertips stretching out, resting lightly on the cold, rough surface. The dust had nearly settled, sand clouds drifting to rest in a shroud over the newly-fallen rocks. Keenan smiled grimly, watching the BaseCamp, now nothing more than a battered, smashed wreckage. So, he thought, that's the way we're going to play this game. He glanced up at the sky, and shook his head. Rocks from above! Rock rain! God did have a wicked sense of humour, didn't he?
The BaseCamp was in complete darkness, a twisted, spectral, skeletal husk under the glow from the green moon. Wary, Keenan made his way down from the rocky dunes and stopped, hand resting lightly against bashed hull, his head lifting, eyes casting over the unrecognisable BaseCamp. Would they have survived the Rockfall if they'd been inside? Unlikely.
Keenan crouched, creeping through a skewed doorway and into a corridor of broken panels. He made his way to the armoury, which had been smashed to hell. Burn marks had scorched the walls from detonating ammunition. Keenan rummaged around for a while, and found a few serviceable Babe Grenades, and one of his stash of Techrim 11mm pistols. He shoved this in his belt, and found a pack, filling it with ammunition.
Again Keenan tried comms, but there was nothing. He shook his head again.
Some fucker's playing games, he thought, and for an instant glanced up, through the mangled BaseCamp ceiling, up towards distant stars. Quad-Gal Military? Steinhauer? He better pray he's not set me up like a goon, came Keenan's internal snarl. Because I'm getting tired of this shit. Something dark, slime-snared and brooding curled around his heart like cancer. A leprosy of attitude flooded his veins.
Real tired.
He walked awkwardly down a buckled corridor, and blinked. There, lying amidst shattered debris, even abandoned by the weird organic cage, was Cam. Keenan dropped to one knee and, with both hands, lifted the little PopBot. "Cam? You hear me, Cam?"
Nothing. No lights. No artificial life. Nothing.
Cam was heavy, despite his tiny tennis-ball size, and Keenan carried the PopBot outside into the cool desert night. Sitting cross-legged, and placing his Techrim by his side on the chilled sand, eyes glancing warily about, Keenan eased open Cam's primary access panel. He instigated a power re-route, then a hardware diagnostic check and full software reboot. Sluggishly, Cam's lights flickered into life. With a gradual acceleration, Cam came back online and lifted gently, motors humming, from Keenan's hands to hover in the air.
"You OK?"
"That bastard."
"Which one?"
"Maximux. I'm scanning now."
"How did he bring the Great and Mighty Cam down?"
"Nitrogen-funnelled EEMP. Don't mock. I'm going to pull his arsehole out through his ears."
"I thought you were a pacifist?"
"Whatever gave you that idea?"
"You did."
"Only when it suits me," growled Cam. "There. Found them. They're currently three klicks away, immobile."
"Camping out?"
"Hard to say. I can scout ahead..."
"Oh no. You're all I've got at the moment, and the whole world seems to be crumbling into rat-shit. I can't get any comms. See if you can establish some form of contact with Pippa and Franco; hell, any of the others. Something very weird is going on down on this planet."
Cam bobbed for a moment, lights flickering on his battered casing. "What happened out there, Keenan? You seem... different."
Keenan grinned. "Let's just say I found God."
"I can't figure it out," said Cam.
"I thought you were a GradeA+1 Security Mechanism with advanced SynthAI and a Machine Intelligence Rating (MIR) of 3450. Surely a simplistic communications problem shouldn't be a problem."
"Hey, listen, buster," snapped Cam, "there are a billion possible reasons why the comms might not work. From simple degradation of components to the interference of RSPs, random solar particles. So shut up and let me focus on finding people."
Keenan lit a cigarette, and headed back into the damaged BaseCamp to see what he could salvage. The remaining vehicles were all battered out of recognition, except maybe for some compressed oval wheels. With a cigarette dangling between his lips, Keenan dragged at wreckage, and tried to fire an engine half-heartedly. There came a whine of starter, but no fire, no energy, no life. "Shit."
He rummaged around in the stores, discovering the InfinityChef[tm] was battered to hell and would only spew out a thin, gruel-like soup. Instead, Keenan found the emergency rations crates. There were ten identical crates of PreCheese. "I'll bloody kill Franco," he growled, shaking his head, not quite believing that somebody allowed the little ginger squaddie to be in charge of emergency rations. With a love of cheese, sausage, horseradish, and little else, it was the kiss of culinary death to allow the little bugger anywhere near any kind of food stores.
Stocking up on a few tins, Keenan at least found coffee and sugar, and moved back to the lockers. He kicked the lock off Snake's, and rummaged around the offal inside. Then he pulled free a tiny cube. "Hello sunshine. What've we got here, then?"
Keenan crawled back through the wreckage, and tossed the cube to Cam, who ingested the storage device. "Found that in Snake's locker. Give it a scan, see what you find."
"It's a Bug."
"Yeah, I know what it is."
"Preliminary surface reading shows dialogue. Fast scanning... it's Franco."
"Franco? Why the hell would Snake bug Franco? Into a bit of eavesdropping on perverts, is he? Likes the sound of simulated flesh on flesh?"
"No. Listen to this. 'But me and the guys, and Pippa, she's a gal, we're heading down to Krakken IV, otherwise known as the Sick World! We've got a very important mishon to find out whether the junks used to live there. Or not. But it's totally, totally top secret, reet, and nobody is to know outside of this table. / Or this room? / Aye, aye, maybe even the whole Winchester. But the point is, they picked me to lead the whole expedition! And if there is dem dirty junks, why, why I'll smash them! / And what of the crown? / Crown? What crown? Whaddya mean? / The fabled treasure down there on Sick World? Surely you've heard of it? / Treashure, you say? / Yeah, Krakken IV is rumoured to have the fabled and immeasurably valuable treasure of Iskander's Crown! Carved from sub-PlutoniumIII, it's supposed to be very dangerous. Loads of treasure-seekers have died trying to locate it. / And where would I find such a treashure? / Oh, they sell maps at the bar, just ask for Apple Annie. She'll smuggle you one. Fifteen Ship Creds. / Think I might just do that!'"
Cam stopped. Keenan's eyes were burning, and he was grasping his Techrim in a manner that worried Cam so much that a rainbow of uncertain lights flickered across his casing.
"You OK?"
"No," snarled Keenan. "If it wasn't bad enough that our dickhead Franco friend fell for a crock of bullshit like that, it's even worse that fucking morons like Snake follow and believe. So I got dumped in a pit to die because of fucking treasure? Is that it?"
"What happened out there?" said Cam, voice soft.
"Ha! Stabbed in the back. Injured pride. But the one thing I despise worse than treachery is treachery for money. Fucking blood suckers. Fucking scumcheese mercenaries." He spat, eyes gleaming. "Have you found Franco yet?"
"Not yet."
"But you've locked onto Snake and his merry band. Are they movin
g yet?"
"No. They're still. Probably got hammered by the Rockfall."
"Good. Get your shit together, Cam. It's time we paid Snake a visit."
Keenan ran through the cool hours of the night, boots ploughing sand, shoulder strap from his pack digging his flesh and making his scowl lengthen. Despite the early hours and the chill, sweat poured from Keenan and his muscles and tendons screamed at him.
"Come on," he muttered. "You're supposed to be Combat K."
He pushed on through pain, through discomfort, and Cam buzzed along beside him, saying nothing, aware they were heading for battle and considering the part he had to play. On the one hand, he could understand Keenan's anger, especially at being betrayed for cold hard currency, but on the other - well, Snake, Ed and Max were still Combat K. They were all under Steinhauer's orders. Now that a war was on, Cam was Quad-Gal military property, and this gave him a serious conflict of interests.
He sighed in binary. Swore in machine code.
Keenan crouched at the top of a rise, wiping sweat from his face, his short hair slicked back and eyes cold. Cam noticed the Techrim, and despite Keenan's panting, the robot-steady hand. Cam had seen this before. Keenan was in attack mode. Keenan was ready to kill.
The Giga-Buggy 6X6 squatted below, currently on its roof. Snake stood to one side, smoking a cigarette, as Ed and Maximux heaved and pushed, attempting to get the vehicle upright.
"They've no chance," muttered Cam. "It'd take twenty men."
Keenan nodded, and slowly exhaled. He glanced at the sky. "Dawn soon."
"Yes."
"Any chance of more Rockfalls?"
"I'm not sure. I haven't yet worked out what causes this phenomenon."
"Try and figure it out, there's a good lad. I can do without getting crushed in the desert. It's bad for morale."
With sunlight streamers touching the horizon, Keenan marched through the sand towards the struggling men. Ed was the first to notice him, and shaded his eyes, squinting. He went for his shotgun, but Keenan's Techrim slammed his fist, a single bullet smashing the stock of Ed's gun and sending it spinning to the dirt. Ed sucked his damaged fingers, as Snake turned with an easy smile, smoke drifting from his nostrils. Maximux scowled at Keenan, his manic eyes hooded, his lips writhing as he mouthed the involuntary curses of the mad, with twitching fingers straying towards his guns...
