Alien Caller (39 page)

He emptied the
last of the first fifty round clip into Dimock’s still moving body,
then reloaded quickly, just in time to see his enemy rising as
though nothing had happened. Shit he was fast.

It was then
that David knew that as careful as he’d been he had still
under-prepared. He stood there, staring at his one true nemesis,
with a growing feeling of shock and terror in his guts. The bullets
were hurting him certainly; they’d knocked him off his feet. But it
wasn’t enough. The armour piercing, fifty calibre, eight hundred
grain bullets would have torn a charging rhino in half, smashed
through the armour plate of a tank and ripped a man inside into
shreds in mere milliseconds. But none of that was happening.
Despite the hellish fury of hot metal being blasted into him it
simply wasn’t happening. Dimock had been knocked down and he was
angry about it. He was bleeding and screaming his rage for all the
world to hear, but he was still intact, still moving. How could
that be?

It was then
that David knew he was in trouble. It seemed that whatever prison
Dimock had been locked up in again, whatever further experiments
they’d done on the monster, it had once more only served to make
him even more dangerous, still harder to kill. That was just so
unfair. And it kept happening. Just what sort of deal had the
monster made with Satan to be so blessed?

But in the end
it didn’t matter as he locked the second clip in place in mere
milliseconds squeezed the trigger and kept spraying the man with
bullets. He was doomed, David could already feel that in the chill
in his blood, but he had to fight, and maybe, just maybe he could
wound the monster enough to slow him down. Enough to keep his
neighbours safe from him for a while. Enough that he could keep
Cyrea safe, and that in the end was all that mattered. No matter
what happened, and he already knew he was going to die and probably
painfully, Cyrea would be safe. That in the end was enough for him,
for the soldier he had once been, and there was a surprising peace
he found in that. In the midst of battle and awaiting defeat, with
the thunder of the machine gun in his ears and the huge recoil as
it slammed backwards into his body eight times a second like a jack
hammer with every shot, he discovered a certain calmness he hadn’t
felt in a long time.

Calmly he kept
spraying him, holding the heavy machine gun steady, making sure
every shot hit, every shot did the maximum damage it could to him,
intending that every bullet in the clip should hit him, do as much
damage as it could. In the end he knew, he was a soldier and that
was what he did.

The second clip
emptied far too soon and he dropped it and slotted the third clip
in a split second and he opened fire. But as fast as he was he was
still too slow. He knew that as Dimock leapt to his feet and came
charging at him like a bullet. There was blood on his face and he
didn’t look either happy or smooth, but he was still coming. David
trained his third clip on his chest and just held the trigger down,
once more knocking him to the ground. Then he moved on to his legs.
Unarmoured, they made good targets and he enjoyed the howling that
came from his foe. Even more he liked the thought that it would
slow him down, maybe eventually, even kill him.

But too soon
the third clip was gone and he had no more. Meanwhile Dimock was
rising again, looking if possible, even angrier. David clutched the
other two MP 5 machine guns to him as he dropped the M2. They were
all he had left.

He let Dimock
get to his feet, the better he hoped to shoot his legs out from
under him, and then opened fire with both weapons. More blood and
more screams came from him, but Dimock refused to fall down and
die. Instead he just came straight at David, even faster than
before. Somehow he had put himself beyond pain, beyond injury. Now
he had only one target, killing David.

The distance
between them closed at unholy speed, and David barely got another
dozen slugs into him, before he had to fling himself aside and
pray. As he had expected, he was nowhere near fast enough, and a
hand reached out and crushed his ankle in mid-air. He was flung
away like a rag doll, as Dimock went screaming off into the
distance, unable to turn or stop quickly on his injured legs. He
was at least wounded, finally, but despite that David knew he would
be back very soon.

He emptied the
last of his clips at Dimock’s retreating back and head, and then
reloaded as Dimock finally turned.

Last clips.
David hauled himself to his feet, barely even noticing the pain of
his broken ankle, and waited, watching Dimock preparing himself. By
then he was a mass of blood from head to foot, and all David could
see were the whites of his eyes, and his grinning teeth, but that
only added to his deadliness. He went cold inside, knowing Dimock
had him. Despite all his preparations, he was still doomed. But he
was still a soldier.

Then Dimock
began his charge, and David opened fire on his rapidly approaching
form. Again he hit him, repeatedly, and watched more blood and gore
coming from his legs, but nothing stopped him, or even slowed him
down. He just kept coming and coming, laughing as he did so.

Then it was too
late as the madman loomed large in his face, and he felt a massive
blow somewhere in his midriff, driving all the air out of his
lungs, even through the kevlar. He flew like a rag doll, still
trying to comprehend the impossibility of it all, while Dimock
stood there and laughed. He knew David was his for the taking, and
for all his suffering he was going to enjoy it. But then he had
been intending to from the very beginning.

David hit the
ground in a heap and lay there, unable to move, unable to breathe.
He could see the madman, casually playing with a machine gun, and
realized he’d dropped them when he’d been hit. But they wouldn’t
have helped anyway. Apparently all they did was make him mad.

“Did you really
think these would stop me?” He wasn’t really asking a question,
just boasting of his strength. To emphasize it he simply tore one
of the guns apart in his hands, as though it was made of paper.

David couldn’t
answer. He had nothing to say and no breath to say it with. Dimock
threw the remains of the gun aside, and pulled out a knife. A huge
sword like knife that glistened in the late afternoon sun. He loved
knives. And David had a fair idea of what he’d do with it. He’d
seen too many of his victims.

But he was
wrong. Faster than a striking snake, Dimock upended the knife and
flung it at him like a bullet. Even if he could have moved, he
couldn’t have avoided it, and the blade buried itself up to its
hilt in his shoulder. He gasped in shock and immediately lost all
control of his arm, but the surprising thing was how little it
hurt. He wondered if his arm was even still attached. Liquid warmth
down his chest told him he was bleeding as at least a dozen major
arteries had been severed, and he knew the end would not be far
away now. He would bleed to death in less than a minute regardless
of anything else Dimock could do.

Unable to help
himself he collapsed all the way to the ground, and simply watched
the madman approach slowly. There was nothing else he could do.

“Do you know
what I’m going to do after you’re dead?” Still it wasn’t a
question, just a threat, although David knew he meant it. He said
nothing, simply letting his vision turn grey around him.

“I’m going to
find everyone you’ve ever known. Every friend, every lover, every
relative. And I’m going to rip their hearts out. DO YOU HEAR ME!”
The last was screamed at David from only a few feet away, probably
because he was already becoming faint from blood loss.

“Every single
fucking one.” David felt his hand on his chest, and then a sudden
tearing pain as Dimock pulled his knife clear. He knew it was only
so he could use it again, and again, and he should have been
afraid. But he was already moving beyond fear and the pain wasn’t
that bad any more. Neither was his blood covered face as David’s
vision began turning dark.

“They’re going
to die in screaming agony, the way you know I like it. And they’re
going to die knowing it’s because of you that they suffer.”

Another
stabbing pain made itself known, through his other hand, and David
knew Dimock had stapled it to the ground for some reason, probably
trying to hurt him. But the pain was only an annoyance by then.
Deep inside some part of him was simply annoyed by the way he was
being distracted from the sense of peace that was filling him. He
was a soldier, he had done his duty, and it was time to rest.

“And the best
part of it is that there’s nothing you can do.” The last was
whispered at him, directly into his ear, while he ripped the knife
loose and then more tearing made itself known somewhere in his
stomach. Dimock was simply carving him up like a roast dinner. It
must have annoyed him immensely that David could barely feel
anything by then. He wanted him to suffer.

“Except make a
good meal.” And just to prove his point Dimock pulled something,
some flesh or meat out of David’s middle, and began chewing on it
in front of him, his blood running down his chin. It should have
hurt, it should have shocked him, but by then David simply didn’t
care any longer. There was no more pain, only the peace that was
creeping over him. Besides he had seen it all before, and maybe it
was only right that he should do this to him. After all he had
failed to stop him too many times before, and so many unfortunates
had paid the price for his failure. At least this time he had
protected the innocent. No one else would die in his place.

“Like shit!” A
blaze of white light suddenly suffused even his blindness, and he
briefly saw the bleeding madman glowing even whiter than the sun.
Then the last of his sight vanished, as did everything else. He had
just enough presence of mind to know that the last voice he’d heard
was Cyrea’s, and pray she wasn’t anywhere nearby.

Then there was
nothing.

Chapter
Fifteen

“Cyrea.”

Cyrea turned as
her boss’ voice came from just behind her, but she was glad for the
interruption. Sitting there staring at the holo’s of the doctors
reassembling David once more was far from easy. Even when the
doctor’s claimed they would have no great difficulties in
reassembling him.

There was just
so much damage. Terrible damage. That man, if he was truly a man,
had torn him apart, and in micro-seconds. Just watching the battle
between the two of them had been hard enough, watching her mate be
beaten, nearly cut in two, and then as he lay there dying, watching
the mad man start eating him, there were no words to describe just
how terrible that was. But the deepest pain, the thing that cut
her, was that David had always known the likely outcome. He had
known he would lose. And he had known what the mad man would do to
him.

“Ayn.” She
nodded to Lar respectfully, but quickly turned her attention back
to the holo’s where large chunks of David, too damaged to be
repaired, were being discarded into stainless steel bins for later
analysis, while new organs were being cloned in endless glass tanks
fixed along the wall, to replace them. Damage such as David had
suffered was almost unheard of.

“We need to
speak of your actions.”

Of course they
did. Cyrea knew that. Sending out the synthetics had been a
terrible gamble. It risked exposing them all. And worse it risked
the humans getting advanced technology before they were ready for
it. But on the other hand as the humans said, it had saved lives,
more than she’d known at the time as the reports of what the mad
man had done to people along the way as he’d travelled to reach
David, were still only trickling in. Terrible reports. And it had
saved David.

“I know.”

“You know that
what you did went against our instructions.” She nodded. There was
no point in denying what was blatantly obvious. In point of fact,
nearly everything was blatantly obvious when they had cameras
everywhere. There was a strange freedom in that. Something that the
humans had yet to learn. Humans lied because they imagined they
could get away with it. None of the people of her world ever even
thought to lie. There was no point when the truth was already
known.

“You know that
it risked exposing us.”

“I know. I did
take precautions, but I knew.”

“Precautions?”
There was no point in denying it, even if she knew it was only
going to get her in more trouble.

“I had two more
squads of synthetics ready to back up the first if they failed, and
they were more heavily armed with neural chargers. I also had a
flyer ready with an eight donder laser array waiting in the bay.”
Lar just groaned as he heard the last, and she wasn’t quite sure
why. That she’d been over-prepared. Or that she’d been ready to
kill the mad man if she had to. Ayns did not do such things. But
then their mates were never placed in such terrible danger
either.

“You know you
will have to stand before a disciplinary court.”

“I know.” That
she’d known from the start. But doing what she had done had never
really been a choice. Not from when the mad man had attacked David
with a jet fighter. A primitive weapon perhaps, but still something
capable of terrible destruction, and more than that, proof of his
intentions to kill her mate. That she could not allow. And when the
reports had started trickling in of the other deaths, the massacre
at the base where he’d stolen the jet for a start, she’d known he
was prepared to kill many more people as well. That was why David
had sent her away. He knew his enemy.