Alex slid a grenade from his belt and flicked the pin away. It spun across the air, headed for the far door, “Come on, you ugly sack of scum—”
WOOSH!
It flew into the air and made for Alex, who bent his knees against his chest and released the D-Rez into the floating void.
SLAMMM!
His boot kicked away its skewers, forcing it to scream in pain. Alex’s fist rammed into the beast’s mouth and down its throat. He released the bomb and booted the creature along the bridge, pushing himself to the exit in the process.
“Go on, get out of there,” the girl said in his ears.
Biddip-biddip-beep-beeeeeep…
Alex darted through the air and overtook the whizzing grenade pin. The panel on the wall grew larger and larger as he twisted himself into a flying position.
He slammed his glove against the panel as the beep from the crazy creature flat lined.
WOOSH! The door opened into a small, black decompression chamber.
Alex took one, final look at the creature and grabbed the door frame, “Bon voyage, you ugly mother—”
KA-BLAAAAMMMM-MM!
The creature detonated in a thousand, messy pieces as Alex slammed the door shut.
His entire body hit the deck as a cloud of gas thrust from the vents in the wall.
“Decompressing now,” the female on the other end of his headgear said. “All good?”
“Yeah, fine,” Alex picked himself up from the floor and held his arms out.
SWISH!
The outer door slid open, releasing Alex into the training compound. His HUD recorded a completion time of 87.7.
“Damn it,” he flipped his visor up and placed his D-Rez firearm on the table, “Two seconds short of my target.”
“But just over two seconds faster than the record, my friend,” Oxade applauded with a distinct over-zealousness as he made his way to the table, “Not bad for your first try. Very well done.”
“I could have been quicker,” Alex removed his helmet to reveal a devastatingly handsome young man with a chiseled jawline and beautiful crystal blue eyes.
Nutrene made the mistake of looking him in the face. She felt her heart flutter, temporarily disabling her ability to speak, “Oh, m-my.”
“Hi, I’m Alex.”
He offered her his hand to shake. She stared at it for a few seconds, trying to decide if something spectacularly embarrassing might occur if she made contact.
Carefully, she took his hand in hers and melted inside, “I’m, uh, Nutrene. Nutrene Byford.”
Alex chuckled and threw her a heart-stopper of a wink. She yanked him forward without warning and ran her hand over his face, much to his surprise.
Her lips pressed against the side of his face, allowing her to whisper something very serious in his ear.
Oxade wasn’t surprised by her actions. Nutrene had a way with her colleagues, not least the men.
“All that time dealing with animals,” he muttered, “And she’s the biggest animal there is.”
“I, uh, don’t know what to say?”
“Then say nothing. Alex Hughes,” she returned the wink and spun around, making damn sure he could see her svelte frame and behind display its perfection.
Oxade sidled up to his new colleague and elbowed him on the arm, “She’s something, ain’t she?”
“She sure is,” Alex blinked.
“She may be a medician. But don’t be fooled, my friend,” Oxade patted him on the back and walked off, “Just as she saves lives, she takes them away. She’s one helluva killing machine.”
Chapter 8
A fighter jet opened its landing gears and made its descent toward the air strip.
Oxade, Nutrene, and Alex sat in the back of a white buggy, headed from USARIC’s main building.
“So, Minneapolis Two, huh?” Oxade asked over the noise of the engines.
Alex scoured the air field through his shades. The sun burned brightly, adding to the intense heat he felt within his American Star Fleet suit, “That’s right, captain.”
“How long did you serve?”
“Joined six months ago on the Bering Strait clean-up operation.”
“Right,” Oxade raised his voice over the noise of the fighter jet touching down on the strip, “Getting rid of the commie bastards from our soil? I hear they’re just getting started”
“Something like that,” Alex said. “It’s going to turn into a real bloodbath, soon.”
Nutrene pointed at a spacecraft looming in the distance. Space Opera Charlie. The scaffolding had been removed. The vessel looked ready for action.
“See that?”
“Yes,” Alex widened his eyes.
“That’s going to be our new home as of next week.”
“Opera Charlie?”
“Yup,” Nutrene licked her lips and threw him a coquettish smile, “I’ve heard it gets lonely up in space.”
“Aren’t there five of us going?”
“That’s right, my friend. A reduced service. Skeleton crew, so to speak,” Oxade slammed on the back of the driver’s seat, “Can’t we go any faster? We have a briefing to attend.”
“I’m going as fast as I can.”
Oxade turned to Alex, “See this idiot? You can’t get the staff, these days.”
“Why don’t you leave him alone?” Alex shouted over the roar of the jet engine, “He’s just doing his job.”
“If I had my way, all the lackeys would be fitted with Decapidiscs. That’d make them produce a lot faster.”
“Decapi—what?”
“Decapidisc,” Oxade yelled. “The compliance unit. Take your head clean off if you mess around.”
“Oh.”
USARIC Headquarters
Conference Room
Maar Sheck’s holographic representation loomed over the conference table.
Crain McDormand was physically present next to him. His thumbnail sat at the edge of the table, throwing Maar’s projection into the room.
“Where are they?”
Crain looked at him apologetically, “Hughes has just finished training. They’re on their way.”
“What’s keeping them?”
“Why, do you have another conference to go to?” Crain smirked with sarcasm.
“Very funny, ass-face,” he walked through the conference table and snapped his fingers, “Bring up the recording.”
Crain waved his hand over the table. A paused three-dimensional image of Maar stepping out of the back of limousine appeared above the surface.
The door to the conference room opened. Oxade, Nutrene, and Alex walked in and surrounded the table.
“Hello, Maar,” Oxade took a seat at the end of the table.
“Oxade Weller and Nutrene Byford, as I live and breathe,” Maar spat with contempt at their tardiness, “Where the hell have you been?”
It wasn’t clear which of the two versions of Maar had spoken - was it the paused image, or the transparent one standing in the middle of the table?
“Umm,” Oxade clocked the still image, “What’s this? Why are you see-through?”
Maar walked through the wooden surface and arrived at the head of the table. He nodded at Crain, “This happened thirty minutes ago. Play the recording.”
Crain obliged and clicked his fingers, enabling the playback to proceed. Maar planted his feet on the ground and stepped out of the limousine. Kaoz ushered him toward the entrance to USARIC HQ, “We have the package,” he said into his headset.
“Very good, get him inside, quick.”
WHOOSH-WHOOSH!
A rocketing noise shot through the air from behind them, “Maar, get down.” Kaoz swung his gun around at the front of the limousine.
Before he could open fire, the driver’s head exploded, painting the inside of the vehicle a dark red.
“Get down, now,” Kaoz shielded himself behind the limousine, looking for the source of the attack. He pressed his microphone to his lips, “This is Kaoz. We are under attack.”
“Kaoz,” Maar rolled across the ground and looked into blinding sun, “H-Help m-me…”
A dark object whizzed around and blocked the rays from his face., “What i-is that?”
An attack drone buzzed around in the air. It spun its cannons at Maar and blasted him in the chest, killing him instantly.
“Maar,” Kaoz pointed his firearm at the drone and shot it out of the air. The hunk of metal crashed to the floor right beside Maar’s bleeding body.
A thoroughly befuddled Opera Charlie team stared at the paused image of Maar’s dead body.
“But… how?” Oxade muttered.
“It wasn’t me,” Maar walked around the table, unable to contain his anger.
Security officials dragged the decoy body into the reception area and tore the fake skin away from the corpse’s face. The man underneath looked nothing like Maar, but was very dead.
“A decoy. His family has been well compensated for their loss.”
“Wow. You really can’t go anywhere, can you?” Nutrene clocked Crain’s thumbnail projecting Maar’s image in the room, “Where are you broadcasting from?”
“I’m not telling you that, you stupid woman,” Maar stopped in front of his new team and folded his arms. “No one can know my whereabouts. It’s for your own safety. Crain, vector scope of Opera Charlie, please.”
“Yes, Maar,” Crain lifted his hand over the surface of the desk. A vector representation of Space Opera Charlie appeared above the table.
Oxade, Nutrene, and Alex leaned in for a better view.
“I’m happy to report that the board unanimously voted to change Opera Charlie’s remit. It is now a search and destroy operation. We’ve selected the most dedicated and, shall we say, less morally-observant members of USARIC to go to Saturn, find Opera Beta and return our property.”
“Your property?” Oxade chuckled to himself.
“Yes, that’s right. Our property. We know they decoded Saturn Cry. Anderson helped them.”
“Anderson?” Alex kept up the pretense, “Who’s that?”
“That dumb animal they took with them,” Oxade snapped and turned to Maar, “What’s the situation with Opera Beta? Last I heard they went missing?”
“They’re still missing. That’s why we’re sending you up. We know they found Opera Alpha and Zillah’s crew. Something seriously awry is going up there, and I’ve had just about enough of it. And so have the board, to be perfectly honest, hence their change of heart.”
Maar nodded at Crain, who enlarged the top third of the vector scope of Opera Charlie.
“We’ve scaled down the ship to the bare essentials,” Crain said. “As there are five of you, you’ll only need the bare minimum. All search and destroy operations are equipped with the latest technology.”
“Five of us?” Oxade looked at Nutrene and Alex, “I only count three?”
“That’s right, five,” Maar said. “Oxade and Alex, can you stand up, please.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Everyone rose from their chairs and took a step back, confused as to the nature of the instruction.
“So, what do we—”
Oxade’s swivel chair spun around. The spider-like metal plate liquefied and formed into one, solid mass.
“What’s going on?”
The liquid metal stretched out across the floor. The armrests tilted up and into the air.
Alex’s chair performed the same action, only this time, a circular magnetic plate sprung out from its side.
The two melded together and stretched apart like three-day-old chewing gum.
CLUNK-SCHWIPP.
The metallic rope snapped in half, forming two lifelike androids. The fabric from the chair sunk into the metal and pushed out into the shape of a head.
“Wow,” Nutrene looked at Oxade for a response. “Is this what I think it is?”
Maar smirked as he moved to the head of the table, “Opera Charlie, meet your fourth and fifth crew members. Poz and Neg Bass.”
Poz, the ‘male’ droid of the duo, stood three-foot-high and looked like an ugly, mini metal beach ball. He tilted his perfectly circular head up at Oxade and blinked his set of peculiar eyebulbs.
“Greetings. I am Poz Bass. I will be joining you on Opera Charlie.”
“But-but—” Oxade failed to process the marvel of technology standing before him, demanding an introduction, “What is this?”
“This, as you’ve seen, is not an inanimate object,” Maar said. “Poz and Neg are prototypes of USARIC’s latest venture with Manning/Synapse. Death drones. Ruthless killing machines. Now, don’t be rude. Shake Poz’s hand.”
Oxade turned to the droid, this time focusing on his face. A dreadful synthetic skin glistened in the ceiling light. Oxade heard the whirring of Poz’s internal mechanism. A very subtle squelching noise followed with every microscopic movement.
“Yeah, put it here,” Oxade slammed his palm into Poz’s hand. His skin immediately absorbed into the droid’s hand.
“Hey, hey, my fingers,” Oxade tried to wrench his hand away.
“Ha-ha-ha,” Poz released Oxade’s hand and trundled over to his counterpart, “I am sorry. I was attempting humor.”
Oxade looked at his hand. It was immaculate, as if nothing had happened.
“I f-felt my soul leaving my b-body,” Oxade stammered. “What the hell are these things—”
“—We are death drones,” explained the pulchritudinous Neg. Affecting a more feminine touch, she slid her arm around Poz and seemed to weld into the side of his body, “Of course, we’d rather have been named something less killerish. We are state of the art killing machines, but that’s not all we are.”
SCHLOOOOO—
Neg’s entire frame amalgamated into Poz’s body, doubling their height as they twinned into each other. Oxade, Alex, and Nutrene were now looking at a fully-formed killing machine. An exo-suit unraveled down their bodies.
“They look like Jaycee, now. Don’t they?” Maar smiled at the trio.
STOMP!
The giant droid in the exo-suit stomped forward and spun its hands around, leaning into Oxade’s face, “Human?” it asked in its threatening grunt of a voice.
“Y-Yes.”
“I thought so,” it held out its palm and closed its fingers, forming a blue-hued fist.
THWOCK!
The hulking mercenary punched Oxade in chest, catapulting him across the conference table. Crain moved out of his path as he landed on his ass and whined.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake—” Nutrene jumped behind her chair and focused her monocle on Alex, “I’m not going to Saturn with them.”
“Get up, Oxade,” Maar said. “You’re the captain. You’re meant to be setting an example.”
“Y-You c-can’t expect us to go on Opera Charlie with them?” He climbed to his feet and brushed himself down. The USARIC logo had torn away from its stitches due the violent nature of the punch.
Maar stood behind Oxade and addressed the team, “I think the five of you will get the job done just fine.”
SCHLOOOOOOP!
Poz and Neg twisted into each other in a miasma of metal and pulled themselves apart. They trundled to the table like a pair of scary Siamese twins and pointed at the vector scope of Opera Charlie.
“Is this our new home?” they asked in tandem.
“Yes, it is,” Maar said.
“We go to Saturn and kill everything.”
Maar nodded, “Yes, but bring Anderson, the cat, back with you. Safe and sound.”
“What if she doesn’t want to come back?”
Maar made eyes at them, “Listen very carefully to me. Oxade is in charge. He’s the captain. So, you do as he says.”
“Yes,” they said.
“Nutrene is the medician. If something happens to any of you, like you’re injured or seriously hurt, she can fix you. Right?”
“Right.”
“And Alex Hughes is in charge of the weap
ons on level two. Not that you guys need a gun, of course.”
Poz slammed his elbow into his own ribs. His forearm broke out like an accordion to reveal a triple barreled canon, “We have our own guns.”
“I know you do,” Maar winked at Neg, who pressed her hands together and fluttered her metallic eyebulbs at him, “Your sister, here, is a lethal little minx, too. I’ve no doubt you’ll be able to complete the job.”
“Excuse me, Maar,” Alex said. “There’s something I don’t understand.”
“What is it, Hughes?”
“Well, if Poz and Neg are death drones, why do you need us humans to go with them? They don’t need oxygen. Resources wouldn’t deplete as fast?”
Maar sighed and made the mistake of touching Poz on his shiny head. An electric spark frazzled the holographic image momentarily.
“We made a mistake with Opera Beta. They’re all Androgyne Series Three, except for Haloo Ess, the botanist and, of course, Anderson herself. We won’t be making the same mistake again.”
“What’s the mistake?”
“Sending Series Three units on a manned mission. They went missing. They reported seventy-two hours’ worth of oxygen, not that it matters to the majority of the crew. But they have the answer.”
“If I may add, Maar,” Crain interjected. “The whole idea of using Androgynes on a manned mission to Saturn was to preserve USARIC’s bottom line. A minimal financial outlay.”
“What does that mean?” Nutrene asked.
“Quite simply, it was the cheapest option. All we need to know now is what happened to them. Quickly, and quietly.”
Alex shook his head and took a final look at Pox and Neg, “So you’re sending humans up with the new generation?”
“That’s right.”
“And you want us to kill everything that moves?”
Maar and Crain nodded with a quiet solemnity.
“You leave in four days’ time,” Maar waved the Opera Charlie vector image away from the table, “It’s a three-year round trip. I suggest you put your affairs in order as soon as possible.”
Ten Minutes Later…
The men’s bathroom.
Alex splashed cold water on his face. He squeezed his eyes shut and looked at his face in the mirror. A fine USARIC logo imprint loomed in the bottom right-hand corner.
Star Cat: The First Trilogy (Infinity Claws, Pink Symphony, War Mage) Page 56
