Hardcore - 03 (9 page)

Reaching the door, he reached in and Ed grabbed him, wrist to wrist in the warrior's grip. Ed grinned. "You did it, mate."

"We were sabotaged. The aerofoil was wedged."

Ed hauled Keenan in, and the battered Combat-K veteran slumped to the floor, his muscles screaming at him, his eyes full of dirt and mouth full of fumes. He breathed, and lethargically unhooked the clips from his belt. Then he glanced up at Ed and grinned. "Thanks for not letting go."

Ed's head tilted. "I've as much desire for life as you, Keenan. Whoever booby-trapped the ship certainly isn't on board. Or..." Their eyes met.

Keenan shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Whoever is playing games, well, it'll come out in the wash." He gave a full-teeth grin, and checked his Techrim, sliding free the magazine, then slamming it home with a precision
clack. "
You see if it doesn't."

"You OK Kee?" came Pippa's voice on the comm.

"Yeah, babe," he breathed. Then his teeth clamped shut.
Babe?
Shit. A close encounter with death and he'd suddenly gone and forgotten her savagery, ruthlessness and downright
evil.
The female of the species? More deadly than the male? Damn fucking right.

"We see what you did," came Pippa's voice. "Well done. Tough gig."

Keenan watched Ed head for the cockpit, leaving him alone. He coiled his cable back on the reel, and dumped it in a locker. Voice low, he said, "Listen. Somebody wanted us
down
and out of the game. I think it's an inside job."

"Why's that?" said Pippa, voice a purr.

"Because I checked the DropShips myself; the only people who've been near after my surveillance are the squads."

"So we've a mole?"

"Aye, and a bad one. One who's out to see us all dead."

"But it can't have been anybody on your ship."

"Why not? As long as he, or she, had good crash protection equipment stashed. It's amazing what you can survive in these technologically advanced times; remember Ket? We should have been cat meat."

"I remember. Listen, I'll speak when we meet at the LZ."

"Out." Keenan's eyes glistened in the gloom.
When I find you
, he thought,
you're going to eat a bullet.

Jets roaring with green fire, the three DropShips banked, swooping low over an undulating sandy coastline. They howled over thick cross-organic jungle, hazy through early morning steam, and the screams of monkey-trees echoed up at the deafening noise of the three infiltration class infantry ships.

Pippa, her keen eye on the scanners, pulled imperceptibly ahead as they flashed over trees, a swathe of white beach, and blue and pink coral that reared from the sea like corrugated fingers, leading the other DropShips in a sudden rush towards their destination...

Behind her, Mel was snoring, strapped into a modified CrashCouch, and Betezh and Olga had ceased their squabbling and fallen into an uneasy silence, eyes watching the flash of green, white, turquoise and blue through the FlexGlass windshield. Pippa thought to herself they looked like sulky schoolchildren, and the image of both in ties and blazers made her grin, her reflection in the FlexGlass a ghost grinning back.

"Game on," she said, lifting the nose of the DropShip. Motors whirred, and engines howled in response to her precise commands as the vehicle slowed over a massive stretch of sand, a hiatus in the jungle where the beach had spread outwards, consuming the land, usurping the thrones of many mighty hardwoods. Like a lake of sand, a yellow plateau, the kilometre-wide oval ate into the landscape and, with scanners spitting numbers across her HUD, Pippa checked stability readings and brought the DropShip down, unfolding landing gear neatly, and just in time. Engines died, and clicks and hisses echoed out across the beach. Pippa moved to the ramp, stomped down the corrugated alloy, and stepped out into the heat.

It hit her, a wave of humidity, a hammer-blow of temperature. Pippa loosened the straps of her WarSuit and jumped into the sand, which covered the toes of her boots in an undulating wave. Behind, the other DropShips rotated, jets howling, and lowered, fusing circles of sand into glass, which crackled and
pinged
as engines died and it cooled.

Pippa shaded her eyes, gazing off at the shoreline. White breakers crashed against the beach. The sea shimmered, flecked with silver. Too much like Molkrush Fed, she thought.
Way
too much like Molkrush Fed. But at least on this mission, she wouldn't be left alone with Keenan. The temptation was... too great.

Betezh stumbled down the ramp behind her, followed by Olga, grumbling and hoisting at her barely restrained WarBra. Mel stayed back, in the shade of the ship. She blinked lazily, jaws drooling zombie-pus.

"Wow," said Betezh. "This is a beautiful place."

"Just make sure you don't look in any of ze rock pools, ya?" said Olga.

"Why?" Betezh raised an eyebrow.

"Because you scare yourself away! Har har!"

"Bitch."

"Bastard."

"Fatty."

"Frankenstein."

"Frankenstein was the
creator,
not the monster, you bolshy rubber-ring idiot."

"Ha! You combine ze worst of both!"

"Kids, kids," said Pippa, holding up both hands. "Shut it, now, or I'll have you on a charge. I'll confine you to the ship. I'll hold back your lolly pop rations - whatever it takes to make you behave like adults."

"S'not me," sulked Betezh, face a frown, scars forming strange patterns against his broad flat skull. "She started it."

"Ze did not!"

"Did."

Pippa cocked an MPK and held the barrel under Betezh's nose. "Need any more persuasion, motherfucker?"

"OK, boss."

Pippa watched the ramps of the other ships descend, and she strode across sand, meeting Keenan, Franco and Cam at the centre of the LZ. They nodded to each other, and Franco patted Keenan on the back.

"Well done up there, compadre."

"I won't rest until I find out who dicked with our ships."

"I'm sure they'll make their presence known, soon enough." Franco hoisted his Kekra quad-barrel machine pistol. "And when they do - fooie!"

"Keep taking your pills, mate."

"I am, mate."

Franco threw a long glance to where Mel hovered, just inside the DropShip. Their eyes met. Mel turned, and disappeared. Franco sighed, then he sighed again, he lifted his shoulders, then slumped, and sighed for a third time.

Keenan grinned. "I thought you said it was an amicable divorce?"

"It was. It is. I mean, we're splitting everything fifty-fifty."

"But you haven't
got
anything," pointed out Pippa.

"Yeah," said Franco, showing the black hole of his missing tooth. "But she's got plenty."

"So you're going to clean the poor lass out?"

"Hey,
she's
divorcing me! I figure the least I'm owed, after, after... after
sleeping
with her, with
it,
with a bloody zombie, is a bit of, y'know," he twitched, and rubbed at his reddening neck, "compensation."

Keenan eyed Franco warily. "I'd forgotten what a money-grabbing little bastard you could be, Franco."

"Hey, can I help it if I was born poor? Can I help it if I try to make my honest way through the world and people step on my financial toes? No. No. I can't bloody well buggering hell help it, can I?"

"But your mother left you a small
fortune,"
said Keenan.

"Gambled it."

"And your uncle left you a fucking
star base."

"Sold it. Drank it. Y'know how it is."

"No, I don't think I do."

Keenan took a deep breath, and looked to Pippa instead. "However." He took another deep breath, not quite believing Franco was in charge of a squad. "All the DropShip scanners are giving readouts which confirm the original data. No intelligent sentient life on the planet, ergo, no threat. This, hopefully, should be a pretty straightforward foray into our designated regions. And we meet back at this LZ in five days. Are we all clear what we have to do?"

Franco pulled free a thick pack from inside his WarSuit. Papers fluttered free, and were snatched by a cool breeze rolling off the sea and carried high, like fluttering white doves, before disappearing off over the jungle.

"Sorry," he said, snatching at fluttering sheaves, "what was our mission again?"

"You've not read the docs?" said Pippa, aghast.

"Hey, I was going to check them out on the final jag here." He pulled a face. "Not all of us are swots, you know."

"Swots?" snapped Pippa. "I'm a swot now, am I, you total dickhead? I bet you don't even know what damn continent you're travelling to. Do you?"

Franco grinned, and held out a hand, palm up. "Chill pill, sister." He gazed around. "Looking at this fine continent, you'll be happy to understand I've packed plenty of combat shorts, plenty of UV50, and a massive stash of sausage. And if that doesn't see me right through this frankly comedy mission, I don't know what will."

Pippa leant close to Franco. When she spoke, her words were a low growl. "Maybe snow shoes should have been on your list,
idiot."

"Wah?"

"You're going to Yax," said Keenan, slipping on a pair of square-cut Oakley
Solaris
shades. "It's just by the north pole. It's snow, ice, crevasses, the full gamut of raging arctic conditions." He showed his teeth, although it was far from a smile. "Why did you think Fizzy and Shazza brought their skis?"

"Optimism?" ventured Franco.

Pippa tutted, eyed Keenan, and said, "All comms are up. I'll see you back here in five. And you?"

"Yeah?" beamed Franco.

"Don't get killed."

"Aye aye, Cap'n."

Pippa stalked off, and herded a newly squabbling Betezh and Olga back into the DropShip. Pippa could be seen directing a grumbling crew in carrying huge, rectangular alloy cases.

"Better be off," beamed Franco, holding out his hand to Keenan. "I'm sure one of the gals will lend me a jacket."

"I'm sure they will," agreed Keenan, shaking Franco's hand. "And Pippa was right. Don't get killed. And don't get into any trouble. And if you
do
get into trouble, use your kube, comms, even your linked Tuff-Map. You got all that?"

"Yeah." Franco turned, and waved to the female soldiers lounging like lizards in the shadow of the DropShip.

"And Franco?"

"Yeah mate?"

"I have a question."

"Shoot."

"It's about, well, I'm just curious, it's just that, when you said that, I mean, when you got married, right, and you and Mel, well, when you made it back to the hotel room, what I wanted to ask, was, well, did you, y'know, and, well...

What was it like?"

Franco stared, stonily, ahead. He coughed. Turned. And without a word, strode back towards his DropShip.

Keenan shrugged. "That bad, eh?" he muttered, and lit a cigarette.

"Change of plan," said Pippa, hoisting her weapons and her pack. Franco, who had been poking suspiciously in his own pack as the teams made final preparations to separate and begin their search and analysis of Sick World, glanced up. He smiled, a broad smile, and produced a long, evil-looking, purple sausage. It was slick with grease, and smelt of death.

"Found it!" Triumph.

"What the hell," said Pippa, "is that?"

"It's a sausage, muppet. A Slim Jim." He bit it, with a crunching sound, and began to chew. It sounded like cogs in a blender.

"This is the score, and I've cleared it with Keenan so no bloody moaning. Because Candy was pulled for another mission at the last minute, and you're a team member down, we're transferring Olga to you."

Franco pointed at Pippa with the purple bratwurst. "No."

"It's orders. Betezh and Olga are fighting like cat and dog, so it'll immediately alleviate that problem. I'll take Miller with me, because the moaning, whining son-of-a-bitch will have a harder time trying to talk when I pierce both his cheeks with my yukana. Franco, this situation is not up for negotiation."

Franco, about to speak, waggled his sausage... and there came a
shring,
a blur of movement, and six slices of meat tumbled to the soil. Franco focused on the end of the decimated weiner, grimaced, then extended his focus beyond to a poised and quivering Pippa, sword raised above one shoulder, her stance that of a formidable ancient sword-fighting warrior queen.

Franco popped the last of the sausage into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "I'd get that blade oiled, love. Looking a bit battered, a bit the worse for wear." He shook his head, face showing regret. "A shame, to let a fine weapon like that rot."

Pippa clucked in annoyance, and sheathed her blade. She stepped in close, an embodiment of menace. Voice low, she muttered, "be careful where you wave your next sausage,
dick
head. It might just get the same treatment."