Mercs!

by Dorian Dawes

  “If you like,” Nergal said, pausing a bit. “I’d like to experiment with my serum. See if it helps stave off the infection.”

  “I thought you said there was nothing that could be done.” Snidely’s brow furrowed. He drew away from Nergal, covering the infected hand.

  “My previous encounter with the critter-infection was before I’d perfected my serum,” Nergal explained, calmly retrieving a vial of the glowing green liquid from his coat. “As a physician, it’d delight me to have defeated it.”

  “That serum can’t possibly be a magic cure-all.” Snidely snorted, skeptical. “I’ve seen it heal wounds, but curing an infection you’ve hardly tested or sampled?”

  Nergal smiled, holding the vial to his face. Snidely was unsettled by the way it cast its eerie light over his gruesome features. It was one thing to let this strange doctor medicate the mercenaries under his hire, another entirely to find himself an experimental subject.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Snidely.” Nergal caressed the vial with a loving finger. “This vial contains the essence of life itself. Trust me, I’m a scientist.”

  Snidely inched away from him. “Only the desperate and the crazed would trust someone like you.”

  With frightful speed, Nergal grabbed Snidely’s arm and pulled the sleeve of his shirt all the way up his arm. The white spots had spread, the skin having nearly changed color completely A series of raised bumps had spread across his flesh. Snidely whimpered, turning his face away so he wouldn’t have to look at it.

  Nergal leaned into Snidely’s face, licking his lips. “The next stages of the infection will be more painful than anything you could even imagine. I’d say desperate is just about right.”

  Snidely’s mouth contorted into an ugly grimace. He didn’t know whether to throw up or cry. He took several deep breaths as panic took hold.

  “This assignment has gone all wrong from the beginning,” he gasped. “I shouldn’t even be down here. My own body turns against me. It’s all so fucked!”

  Nergal’s eyes softened. He gripped Snidely’s wrist. The two men looked at one another as silent understanding passed between them.

  “I understand,” Nergal said, his voice quiet and sincere. “Please. Let me help you.”

  Snidely’s fingers gripped the folds of Nergal’s coat. “All right. Do it.”

  Nergal drew the contents of the vial into a syringe. He pulled Snidely’s arm forward and gave him an almost apologetic look before inserting it directly into his veins. Snidely threw back his head and howled.

  “Wh-what’s happening to me?” he managed to scream.

  Snidely clutched his stomach. The burning sensation spread from his arms and intensified within his gut. His entire face became drenched with sweat as he shook and gasped for air.

  Nergal reached within his coat for another syringe. “The mutation within your system has already begun. My serum is trying to counteract it. It will get worse before it gets better.”

  “And here I thought we were…nngh…sharing a moment,” Snidely grunted through his spasms.

  Nergal retrieved a third syringe and injected it into Snidely’s neck. The spasms slowed until the company man fell completely limp in his lap. Nergal held his shaking body close.

  “Something for the pain,” he whispered.

  Already most of Snidely’s skin had turned the color of milk. There were four raised knots just beneath his shoulder blades. Nergal looked over Snidely’s unconscious form, tracing his fingers along the back of the company man’s spine. The serum’s attempts to counteract the infection might have sped up the rate of mutation. He’d need to keep an eye on his patient in case the treatment failed.

  Nergal ran his hands through Snidely’s hair. Holding the man in his arms like this brought up too many painful memories. He’d every impulse to shove the corporate creep to the side, but he didn’t. How long had it been since he’d held anyone? A lifetime, probably.

  “Dalton…” The name slipped from his lips almost unconsciously.

  He rolled Snidely over onto his side and shoved him to the opposite end of the tank in disgust. Nergal bore no ill will toward the man at this point, only a profound sense of self-loathing and bitterness. He was repulsed by his own trauma. If he could fry those particular parts of his brain he would. They served him little.

  Nergal sat, wrists resting over his knees as he stared off into the nothingness. Snidely’s body still shook and quivered even as the man passed in and out of consciousness. Nergal couldn’t help but steal occasional glances his way. He swore at himself for his weakness and grabbed Snidely to cradle him once more.

  “Who’s Dalton?” Snidely groaned, barely awake.

  “Go to sleep,” Nergal ordered.

  “Please…I need something to focus on.” Snidely’s voice was weak and hoarse.

  “Fine. He was my partner. Another scientist.” Nergal sighed. “Real idealistic fool, he was, but it was the worst foolishness, the infectious kind. He had big dreams and big ambitions and wanted to help people and dammit if listening to him didn’t make you want to follow.

  “The whole project was his idea. We were going to cure diseases. All of them. An end-all drug that could be cheaply produced and sold to those who couldn’t afford more expensive treatments.

  “We’d discovered an enzyme on one of the rumored Valran home-worlds. Any virus that came into contact with it evaporated. Just had the problem of completely rewriting the DNA of all test subjects, killing them. We were on the verge of a breakthrough. A million scientists all working toward a common goal of ending sickness. We just didn’t count on our biggest sponsor pulling the plug.

  “Shouldn’t have trusted a company that thrives off keeping people sick to adequately fund our research. Black Pharmaceuticals did us a nasty. Bombs were planted across the station by their elite swat teams, and we were executed. Our research was destroyed. I had to watch a firing squad murder my colleagues. Dalton was the first to die.

  “In the confusion, I’d been infected by the test samples of the various diseases we were working with. A slew of pathogens from every planet in the galaxy. Injected myself with our serum to try and counteract the symptoms before they killed me. Serum worked, but not without consequences. It turned me into this ugly, green thing.

  “So I killed them. I killed all of them. Anyone associated with Black Pharma got exposed to my sickness. After that the IGF arrested and quarantined me on this rock.”

  A minute passed. Then Snidely managed to croak out a faint whisper. “How lonely that must have been.”

  Nergal’s eyes blazed with hate. “It was pure hell.”

  The comm-line crackled with static as Melanson’s voice poured in. “Look alive people. Trees are sending their minions after us.”

  Nergal slid Snidely out of his lap and moved to the controls at the front end of the tank. His eyes scanned the monitors. A group of figures were briefly illuminated in the darkness by warning puffs of fire from Melanson’s flamethrowers. They stood, crouched among the leaves, swaying eerily in the crimson fog.

  “Minions,” Nergal breathed. He swallowed hard. “Right.”

  TALISHA EMERGED FROM the control room. Her gait was swift and purposeful. Her helmet lowered onto her face as she rushed through the halls of the drop-ship.

  She alerted Nergal on her comm-link. “Hey, Doc. How ready are you to get us out of here?”

  The line crackled. “I’d stay put if I were you, Miss Artul. It’s a bit of a fiasco out here.”

  “I don’t like fiascoes,” Talisha snapped. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Oh nothing that unusual, just that the dead walk the earth.” His voice sounded uncharacteristically shaken.

  Talisha’s pulse quickened. “Zombies? Again? Really?”

  “Again?” Nergal almost shrieked. “You were actually serious about that whole jellyfish thing?”

  “How many?” Talisha now ran through the halls readying for a fight.

  �
�No idea.”

  “What type of undead are we dealing with? Virus? Psychically controlled?” Her words were clipped, direct.

  “There are different categories for this?” Nergal spat. “I’d guess something to do with the spores in the area. They seem to be piloting the dead bodies of former IGF personnel.”

  “All right, I’ve got an idea.”

  “Feel free to let me in.”

  “I’ve seen spores that animate corpses before, usually insects. It’s both a defense mechanism, and a means of reproduction.”

  “To pilot a human body would require some rather complex evolution,” Nergal replied. “What are you thinking?”

  Talisha held her arm cannon to her face and opened a holographic panel just over her wrist. She flipped through several buttons marked by the Valran tongue before nodding satisfied. She clenched her fist, charging the beam. Instead of the yellow ball of energy that formed at the tip of the cannon, there appeared a crackling blue orb.

  “Electromagnetic pulses,” she said gruffly. “Fry their brains. Just need a second to charge up a wide enough blast to cover the whole area.”

  “These tanks aren’t protected against an EMP! You’ll fry our equipment, you numbskull!” Nergal protested.

  “The blast should only short them out for a hot-second,” Talisha insisted. “But be ready with your flamethrower in case the trees get feisty.”

  Nergal let out a long sigh. “I hate this planet.”

  Talisha said nothing. She marched to the edge of the ship and flattened her back against the wall to peer around the corner. She saw them, the shambling corpses of a hundred soldiers.

  They had bits of vines growing out their shoulders and legs, some with roots piercing out their eyes and poking through the tips of their fingernails. A few dozen had bark growing over their exposed rotting skin. Where their bodies had decayed, plant-growth had taken over to fill in the gaps as best it knew how.

  The tanks and spyder vehicles trampled and battered the zombies, only for them to stand once more. Limbs were torn asunder to be re-attached by the vines. Even as the flames scorched their bodies they still charged forward, heedless of their own survival.

  Talisha kept the blast charging, willing the blue orb to grow. Charging a blast this size usually wasn’t her style. It took too long and was generally too damned risky. There was no telling how much devastation she could cause if she focused long and hard enough. Stories of some of the things her mother had been able to accomplish with this same suit still intimidated her.

  Talisha wasn’t satisfied till the orb had become about the size of Bluebird’s fist. It swirled and crackled angrily. At times its form rippled and threatened to come undone. It took everything she could to control it.

  “All right, this is as good as it gets,” she muttered and raced into the throng.

  The eyes of the plant-zombies turned on her. They tripped and fell over each other in their scrambling rush. Bones cracked as heavy feet trampled over fallen limbs. Talisha leapt into the air with a thrust from her jet pack. She aimed the sparkling orb of electricity below, watching them claw for her with hungry hands. Vines shot out of the trees attempting to wrap around her ankles. She could barely aim while dodging. Fortunately, they were all clumped up nicely enough that she was certain to hit them all in a single blast.

  “Lights out,” she said.

  The sound of a thousand shrieking birds filled the air. For a brief moment the entire area was illuminated in a blinding blue light. Soon as the orb hit the first zombie it detonated, sending a pulse that rapidly expanded and covered everything. Visible blue fizzles of electric bolts could be seen quickly snaking over every zombie and tank around them before vanishing.

  Talisha nearly collapsed. The blast felt like it’d taken something out of her, like knives pricking at the base of her skull. The zombies all collapsed into a pathetic, lifeless pile. The flamethrowers on the tanks halted and the spyders groaned on their legs as they all but collapsed. For a moment all was still.

  Then the trees retaliated. Vines eagerly shot toward the spyder’s legs and yanked them apart. Doors were torn violently from the tanks and screaming bandits hurled into the open maws of trees. The next six seconds were filled with gore and carnage as fresh corpses were added to the forest floor or eagerly devoured by the local fauna.

  Melanson was pulled from his tank. The slimy vine squeezed around his gut even as he thrashed and reached for one of the grenades on his belt. He pulled the pin with his mouth and roared, hurling it into the den of trees. A large explosion shook the forest and the vine recoiled, releasing him. He fell to the ground and pulled out his assault rifle, firing wildly at anything that dared move or approach him.

  “Kiss my fat, hairy ass!” He bellowed. “I will fuck all of you!”

  Talisha took that opportunity to fly toward the tank with Snidely and Nergal. She fired off several energy blasts to fend off the attacks of the nearby trees before hurrying through the door. She flipped several switches once inside, starting the flamethrowers. Several vines that had attached themselves to the tracks of the tank let out an abominable screeching noise before slinking off into the darkness.

  She collapsed into the pilot seat and removed her helmet. She took a cursory glance about the tank. She saw Snidely curled up and shivering in the corner, and that was all.

  Talisha made a call on her comm-line. “Nergal, you there?”

  He responded quickly. “Doing just fine, Talisha. Go on without me.”

  “Nergal, dammit. What are you doing?”

  “Taking out an insurance policy. Trust me. Everything will work out just dandy. Keep Snidely sedated for me. Unsure how well he’s doing with the creeper-infection. Would hate for you to survive all that just to get ambushed from behind.”

  “What?!” Talisha screamed into the mic.

  “Toodles!”

  Nergal disconnected from the comm. There’d be no reaching him now. Talisha could have screamed and flipped at least a half-dozen tables, maybe more. She wheeled around in her seat and took a concerned look at Snidely.

  “How you holding up?” she asked.

  He responded by giving her the middle finger.

  Talisha nodded. “Got it. Let me know if you need anything.”

  She turned back to the controls and began the trek out of the woods. She was eager to leave this creepy place behind. She hoped she’d never see Melanson or his Raiders ever again.

  Chapter Five

  NOTHING REMAINED OF the Raiders’s camp but the acrid stench of smoke and seared metal. Those that survived Cyrus’s rampage had long since fled into the night. Bluebird had kept her plasma cannon focused mostly on dismantling the tanks and additional wyverns in the encampment.

  Talisha drove the tank toward them. She was greeted by silence. She emerged from the tank, surveying the torched encampment with an open mouth. Bluebird was reloading the energy cells in her plasma cannon. Talisha approached her.

  “Some infiltration mission,” she said, flabbergasted. “Did you leave any of them left alive?”

  “Most ran like cowards when Cyrus took over the wyvern,” Bluebird said. “They thought it was possessed by demons.”

  Cyrus wandered over, still in his wyvern body. He lifted one leg to make a waving gesture. Talisha raised an eyebrow.

  “Not too inaccurate,” she said. “So did you get the key?”

  Rogers joined them, folding his arms over his chest and shaking his head. “Not a gosh-darned thing. Melanson must have it on him.”

  Talisha stifled a groan. All that risk for nothing. One of the spyder units came lumbering out of the forest. Bluebird dove in front of Talisha, aiming her plasma cannon at the mechanical horror.

  The hatch atop the spyder raised and Nergal climbed out, raising both hands in surrender. “Lay down your weapons, you fools. It’s me!”

  Bluebird kept her weapon trained on him, lip curled. “Where have you been?”

  Nergal reached into the spyder
and dragged Jefferson out by his arm. The boy was just conscious enough to struggle, though not by much. Nergal pulled him close and pressed the visor of his protective suit against Jefferson’s face, causing the boy to squirm uncomfortably.

  “I got us some leverage,” Nergal said, smiling. “We’ll get that key. Won’t we boy?”

  “Nergal. What the fuck.” Talisha almost spat.

  “Don’t get so self-righteous,” Nergal hissed, turning on her. “You could have warned Melanson and his raiders about the EMP, but you didn’t. You rendered their vehicles useless and let them be slaughtered. If I hadn’t intervened, the little brat here would have been plant-food.”

  Bluebird lowered her cannon. She turned to Talisha. Her brow furrowed in an expression of stunned disappointment. Her stance parted and she tilted her head to the side.

  “That true, bounty hunter?” she said.

  Talisha folded her arms over her chest. “If you knew what I knew about Melanson…”

  “Those people were fighting to survive!” Bluebird insisted. “The boy is innocent.”

  “That boy piloted a powerful piece of weaponry that nearly killed you,” Talisha retorted. “My sympathies notwithstanding, these people are still dangerous. Thought you understood.”

  “I fight with honor!” Bluebird yelled. “With dignity! I don’t lure people to their doom to stab them in the back! I thought you a proud warrior, Talisha Artul. I was wrong. You are a coward.”

  Nergal screamed at the both of them. “Hey! As much as I love watching like-minded individuals tear each other apart over their own hypocrisies, we have work to do. We can still get what we came for.”

  The earth shook, rattled by an explosion. They heard the echoes of gunfire coming closer and closer. There were screams and raucous laughter, then Melanson emerged covered in blood and bruises. He held a machete in one hand, and his assault rifle in the other. He’d tucked the gun into his armpit so he could wield it single-handedly while hacking away at the vines. He appeared to have hurled every grenade he owned.