Biohell (16 page)

He moved to his study, with its
low TitaniumIV furniture and business-like air. Opening a high cupboard, he
dragged free a matt black box which looked distinctly battered, and of very
little value. Keenan activated the power cells, and sent a PB—a Panic Burst—to
the nearest Quad-Gal Military Sentry Ship.

A red light illuminated. Keenan
cursed.

The signal had been blocked.

“Son of a bitch.”

What next? Keenan had to get off
the planet. If, as he suspected, the junks in massive numbers had performed a
surprise invasion, it could be
weeks
before QGM might be alerted.

What do they want on Galhari?

Why invade this peaceful, modest,
and modestly armed planet?

Keenan grabbed a pack and stuffed
it with a few essential items, growling all the time that Cam, his little
Security PopBot, had chosen a fine time to abscond for system upgrades.

Moving to the kitchen, Keenan
paused, rubbing at his damaged flank. The bleeding had stopped now thanks to
the application of WORM-strips, but the pain still nagged him. Against his
better judgement, he grabbed a bottle of Jataxa and a glass, poured himself a
generous measure, then stared at the amber liquid, shaking in his hand.

No.

He placed the glass down with a
clack...

As the cold barrel of a gun
nudged the back of his head.

“Where is it?”

The voice had the same kind of
high-pitched buzzing the junk made back in the quarry. Keenan cursed himself.
How could he have been so stupid? He dropped his pack to the floor.

“Where’s what?”

“Don’t be smart. The black disk.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking
about.”

“Turn around.”

The gun pulled back, and Keenan
turned. Five junks stood in his home, their bodies encased in black armour,
their faces warped and distorted, old, pitted metal, disease personified.
Keenan could almost imagine fumes rising from them. Their eyes were narrow,
red, blood-filled emotionless discs. They all carried guns. Keenan felt his
Techrim dig against his hip. He allowed breath to leave his body like a
soft-knifed tyre.

“We witnessed the mess you made
of our scouts.” The junk tilted its head. To Keenan, it sounded as if the
creature struggled to form human speech. “You burned us. You took the
SinScript. The SinScript looks like a coin. A disk. But then, you already know
this.” Its eyes narrowed. “You know what we are... and so you know I want it
back.
Need
it back. Or you’ll suffer, scourge, like no other human ever
suffered.”

“OK. OK.” Keenan held up his
hands. “Listen mate,” he laughed weakly, “it’s not in the house.” He slammed
forward, smashing his left forearm against the gun which discharged, bullet
whining into the ceiling. Keenan cannoned into the alien, head crashing against
the pitted metal face, right hand drawing his Techrim and shooting another junk
in the throat. The junk staggered back, blood flowing between scabbed fingers.
The others lifted weapons... but to shoot Keenan was to shoot their commander.

Again Keenan smashed his head
into the metal face, wrapped his arm under the junk’s, locking it in place, and
put his Techrim against the creature’s skull.

“Tell them to lose the guns,
fucker.”

The junk shook against him, and
Keenan realised it was laughing. He stared into those red eyes, only inches
from his own. The stench of the junk was awesome.

Slowly, where his arm locked the
alien in an iron grip he felt its flesh slowly melt away and turn and lock into
a different limb, forcing his own arm painfully away from its body and almost
snapping his bones. Snarling in surprise, Keenan fired his Techrim, kicking
himself back away from the creature as blood sprayed from an 11mm gunshot wound
and the junk whirled, blood splashing in a horizontal spray, eyes glowing in fury
as it leapt at Keenan, bearing him violently to the ground. Both arms slammed
Keenan’s head with a
boom
and the junk took his Techrim neatly, tossing
it, clattering, to one side.

Keenan groaned, blinded by the
blow. Old alcohol tasted bad in his mouth. And he realised, with a bitter,
nasty kick, that he was a shadow of his former self. A replicant. A dark and
spineless ghost.

The junk, atop him, smiled down,
tiny triangle metal teeth grinding together. Keenan watched the blood flow stop
from the gunshot wound in its head. He swallowed, hard.

“Last chance, Keenan.” The junk
removed gloves. Its hands were minced flesh, sporting holes and gradual
degradation. Keenan could see tendons operating through rotting gaps.

“OK.” Keenan breathed heavily. He
knew that to tell them would be instant death. He had to buy time. But how? And
how did he
kill
these... creatures? Bullets were ineffective.

The junk gestured to his comrade,
the one Keenan had shot in the throat. Blood glistened slick on skin and
armour. It passed the commander an MPK and the barrel came to rest against
Keenan’s chin. The junk leaned close. The aroma of toxic flesh invaded Keenan’s
senses.

“Last time. Where is it?”

“I have a safe store. In the
woods.”

“For weapons?”

Keenan gave a nod.

“You will take us there.”

The junk stood, dragged Keenan to
his feet and put the MPK in his back. It pushed him out onto the veranda,
towards rough-wood steps which led down to a gravel path. Keenan walked,
sunlight dazzling him, the five diseased creatures following close and glancing
nervously about. Distantly, more choppers howled. Keenan’s nose twitched. He
could smell burning. They were burning the city.

“What do you want here?”

“Walk.”

“Why invade Galhari? We are a
peaceful planet!”

“By the time QGM discover our
little party, there will be nothing left to salvage. Now do as you’re told,
Combat
K
man, and retrieve the disk if you want to live.”

“Down here,” he said, moving
across the sweeping gravel drive which ended at a fence by a small stand of dense
rayga woodland. A narrow disused path veered right through the swathe of
angular, gnarled trees with sparse orange leaves, and meandered down through
the woods to the mouth of the ocean. Keenan climbed over the fence, glanced
back. Sweat stung his eyes. Distantly, he could hear the roar of heavy machine
guns, muffled, as if by fog. Keenan glanced right. He could see the junks’
groundcar parked to one side, a battered all-terrain GWZ with blacked windows
and six wheels. The junks followed him over the fence, covering him with
automatic weapons. They knew: no man could outrun five machine guns.

Suddenly, Keenan’s hackles
raised. This didn’t feel like him leading the group; it felt like an execution
squad, taking him into the woods to die. A coldness descended on his soul. His
mouth was barren, heart thundering in his ears.

Think.
Think.

The group were swallowed by the
cool silence of the rayga. Even the distant guns vanished as the packed trees
absorbed noise. They strode over springy green moss until Keenan halted, and
stooping, took hold of a large iron hoop. With a grunt he heaved and a large
section of dulled alloy lifted on smooth hydraulics with a rain of soil. The
group stared down at a second alloy panel.

“Open it.”

The commander prodded Keenan
unnecessarily, and he knelt, keying in a code. The panel slid to one side
revealing a steep alloy ramp. Lights flickered into life one by one. A smell of
cold air rushed out.

“Wait here,” said the commander.
He glanced at Keenan, and gave a smile full of nasty metal teeth. “On second
thoughts, you go first. It might be booby-trapped.”

“You got me there.” Keenan
stepped onto the ramp, striding down into gloom. The commander followed, and
then the four remaining junks. The one with the hole in his throat left a trail
of blood droplets sizzling on the moss like a chemical pestilence.

Swiftly, they were swallowed by
the pit.

~ * ~

Cam’s
heart sang with joy.
Going home! I’m going home!
It had been a gruelling
month of upgrades under the watchful eye of Gunnery Sergeant Reznor. The
training had constituted many different factors; from database uploads,
technical and logistical testing, a physical replacement of bandwidth
transmitters which was tantamount to torture and digital abuse, and day after
day of physical and mental combat tests. Seven of the thirty withdrew after
only a few days, much to the jeering of Gunnery Sergeant Reznor. The ruffled,
indignant PopBots said they would put in official complaints, to which Reznor
snarled, “Go on then, sod off and tick your little fucking boxes.” He was
obviously no fan of bureaucracy. However, Cam was proud to admit that he made
it to the end of Upgrade Training, along with twelve others, including Private
Pyle, the ‘maggot’.

Now, as the Shuttle docked and
Cam found himself bobbing through immigration where his chip was stamped and he
paid his ‘entry visa’ of ten gem-dollars, much to his chagrin, he floated into
the relaxation suite of Dekkan Tell’s Shuttle Docks and spun, looking for
Keenan.

Strange. Keenan had said he would
meet Cam.

Unless—the Jataxa had kicked in
again.

Annoyed now, but feeling a touch
on edge, the small black ball bobbed along and out into the sunshine—as behind,
machine guns screamed and a flood of junks swarmed the Shuttle Docks with guns
yammering, bullets scything people like wheat and cutting them down in bright
showers of blood and flesh cubes.

Cam jumped, shocked. His scanner
slammed across the entire planet of Galhari. He saw the invasion force. Gave a
digital
gulp.
It was big. Far bigger than a tiny, poorly defended planet
like Galhari had a right to demand. And Cam sensed... orbital stacks blocking
incoming and outgoing signals of all kinds. The junks had isolated Galhari. Cam
had
just
squeezed in before the Big Sleep.

Cam cruised past a stream of
black armoured military vehicles, which opened fire on him making him curse and
accelerate at a phenomenal rate as bullets
pinged
from his shell. As air
rushed by, Cam could smell the familiar aromas of home... mixed with fire, and
hot metal, slaughter, and the pervading invading stench of the junks.

Cam approached Keenan’s house
warily, after again passing convoys of black armoured infantry carriers. He
halted, hovering, spinning, lights blinking on his shell. Cam’s sensors
immediately picked out hot oil. So then... Keenan had been out on the bike?
Then he detected cordite and the little Pop-Bot’s sensors quickened.

Cam stopped dead. He orientated.

Scanned. Triple scanned.

With all his senses on
full-scream, he remembered the words of Gunnery Sergeant Reznor. He had to be
strong. Proud. Have courage in the face of adversity... even if that adversity
was ten million invading junks...

Cam prepared for Battle.

He slowed his speed and kicked an
adrenalin charge up to full. He eased into Keenan’s house and there the stench
of the
junks
was abominable. A reek so foul if Cam could have puked, he
would have done so. He spun slowly through various rooms, audio-detection
modules clicking in his metal case. There.
There...

Cam shot from the house, straight
through the wall, and towards the woods and the old stores Keenan kept for
emergency situations. As he approached, buzzing with velocity, there came a
high pitched shrilling scream and smoke belched from the opening in the forest
floor. Suddenly a figure emerged, sprinting; it was aflame, huge billowing
tongues of green and yellow leaping from clothing and face and armour. The junk
was squealing and keening, sprinted straight at Cam—who settled into a grim
spin and punched with vicious violence through the junk’s chest, removing its
heart with tiny snippers, to emerge from its flaming back holding the pumping,
slick grey organ. The junk collapsed, dead and smouldering on the mossy path,
and Cam sped to the opening and dropped into the confined chamber...