He focused on the
buzz
of the stealth engine. The boat was inside the enclosing embrace of angular coral, which they had spotted from the beach. Keenan moved further out into shallow waters, his MPK poised, eyes and ears alert.
The boat was coming closer. Keenan smiled a sick smile.
It suddenly appeared, gleaming and slick with white brine, the narrow hull and specialised markings designating it as a Raptor Boat, a special forces tool used across a thousand worlds.
What were you expecting?
he thought,
a bamboo canoe?
There were two heavily armed Ket-i warriors onboard; their eyes widened as they spotted him, but too late, as Keenan’s hand grasped the Raptor, and his MPK was in the pilot’s face. The boat slowed. The engine
buzzed.
Keenan smiled a smile filled with promise.
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes, alien.”
“Bring the boat in to shore, slowly, and I won’t put a bullet in your pretty face.”
The two huge warriors exchanged glances, and Keenan saw them tense, ready to attack. They were a warrior race. They were not taken prisoner; they fought to the death.
The Ket-i lunged for the MPK, and Keenan put a round in the warrior’s shoulder; the bullet exited in a shower of shoulder-blade shards, hissing off into the mist. The soldier recoiled, face twisted in agony as he stumbled back into the Raptor Boat’s interior, and Keenan levelled the MPK at the second Ket-i.
“You want some as well? This time I’ll put you down.”
The warrior shook his head, and Keenan climbed aboard the Raptor, rocking it savagely. The Ket-i steered the boat onto the shore, and Keenan gestured for the two to exit. The Ket-i warrior helped his wounded companion and they stood on the sand, looking a little sheepish.
“This isn’t their way,” said Pippa.
Keenan shrugged. “Live or die. They are choosing to live.”
“Good choice,” nodded Franco. He approached the huge warriors warily, and bound their hands behind their backs using raze-wire. Then, kicking the backs of their knees, he rolled them onto their faces and bound their ankles.
“Look how the heroes operate,” sneered Betezh.
Keenan rounded on him. His face was a mask of controlled fury, and Betezh recoiled.
“Shut up,” growled Keenan, “or I’ll feed you to the sharks.”
“Sharks?” muttered Franco.
“I thought you did your research?” laughed Pippa. “The Milk Sea is crawling with them. The water gives them powerful nutrients, and they hunt by scent anyway so the clouded waters don’t impede navigation and feeding; they grow
real
big here.”
“Don’t like sharks,” muttered Franco, and climbed onto the boat. He helped Rebekka to board, and the others climbed on, Betezh jabbed hard in the spine by Keenan’s MPK.
Then, through the mist came a tiny buzzing sound, and Cam emerged, a little more battered, a little more dented, a little more aggravated. He floated graciously to Keenan’s side, and the big man smiled at the machine.
“I knew you weren’t dead, little buddy.”
“I got caught up in a magnetic field from one of the engines; dragged me to the bottom of the sea.”
“Thought you smelt a little fishy,” guffawed Franco.
“Glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour.” Cam’s voice was as cold as the tomb-world.
Franco pushed the boat out, then jumped in with a splash of spray. They bobbed for a few moments, and Cam analysed the boat’s controls. “Pretty standard,” he said, smugly. “Should be no problem for a team like this. After all, you’re professional.”He seemed to be staring hard at Franco, although they couldn’t be sure. He had no eyes.
Franco made for the controls; Pippa halted him. “Where you going, midget?”
Franco frowned. “I will pilot.”
“Oh no, that’s my job.”
“What, after you crashed the Hornet?”
Pippa reddened. “We were shot out of the damn sky!”
“You were still in charge. What about, y’know, anti-missile missiles? ATRAMS? Scorchers? And all that? I thought you were the best? Well, you did a damn shit job back there, lass.”
Pippa shoved Franco hard. “Ipilot. You keep an eye on your boyfriend, just in case he needs more stitches.”
Now it was Franco’s turn to redden.
Pippa revved the engine, then cruised out into the mist leaving the white-sand shore behind. She eased along the pink ridge of coral and, as they passed close, they could see creatures embedded, fossilised, in its angular flanks. All looked to be in agony: tiny mouths open, screaming.
“Hell, look,” said Franco.
Pippa slowed the boat. There, embedded, was a Ket-i warrior, bent over almost double, mouth open in a terrible agony. He was frozen, fossilised in the pink coral, a bas-relief carving.
“Back off,” snapped Keenan.
“What?”
“Get back! Now!” he hissed, voice tinged with panic.
Pippa slammed the engines into reverse and the Raptor spun, but even as they were moving, the coral also started to move... and with tiny
crackling
crunches its angular form jerked, sections piling out in staccato columns towards the boat and there, at the end, long pink razor-sharp teeth.
“Nooo!” howled Franco.
Keenan discharged twenty rounds into the crackling coral maw, which chipped and splintered, sparks flying, slivers of pink and white shearing free and tumbling into the Milk Sea. Pippa slammed the Raptor into power mode. The engines roared, suddenly unleashed from their stealth encumbrance, and the Raptor howled away back towards the beach.
She spun the boat around with a surge of water. They watched, horrified, and the coral crackled, and then returned to its angular rigid mould. In the blink of an eye it was static, a tableaux. Echoes of gunshots reverberated through the mist. Booms clattered distantly.
Mist drifted and swirled.
The sounds of other Raptor Boats increased.
“Get us out of here,” growled Keenan, rubbing at his stubbled chin. Franco joined him, and they hung over the sides of the boat, MPKs tracking the mist as Pippa threw caution to the wind and slammed the throttle forward. Engines roared, the sounds reverberating and they hammered, bouncing across white waters, past the aggressive attack coral, or whatever the hell type of mutation it was, and out onto the open sea.
The mist was thicker and more enduring than they had thought. After ten minutes of flat out high speed, bouncing from one wave to the next, Pippa halted their progress and they sat, riding the gentle swell of milk waves as Franco stabbed at his PAD. They seemed to have lost the other boats.
“OK. Fortune gave us several points of reference in case of emergency. Using his navigation coordinates, I can take us to a disused military base, an old Gem Rig.”
Keenan nodded. “Might be some supplies. God knows we need them, even the basics. Patch the co-ordinates through to the computer; Pippa, check he’s doing it right.”
“Hey!” snapped Franco.
“Hey yourself,” said Keenan. “I don’t want any more bullshit. This mission has been a farce from start to finish. From this point on, I want everything checking and double-checking. If you don’t like it Franco, then you’d better swim back to that island, because that’s the way it’s going to be.”
“What’s a Gem Rig?” said Rebekka. She looked tired, weary from the heat and the tension of being hunted. Her hair was matted, face drawn, rings around her eyes.
“The Ket-i are renowned through the Quad-Gal for their extraction of jewels. Beneath the Milk Sea and areas of jungle there is a plethora of gems to be found: diamonds, rubies, emeralds, kankas, sapphires, yuyus, and all manner of even more esoteric gemstones. The Ket-i are experts in extraction, cutting and polishing. Their stones—at least before the war and accelerated unpopularity—were much sought. Gems made Ket a rich world; vast fortunes of which they spent on arms and hardware.” Keenan smiled grimly. “A Gem Rig is just that: a floating platform out to sea used in the extraction of precious stones. This one is—according to Fortune—abandoned. It was a Gem Rig, then the fields were cleaned out and it was eventually used by the Ket-i military as an offshore storage depot. Now, it seems, it no longer has any intrinsic military value.”
Rebekka nodded. “Yeah. Now I think about it, in The City such stones pass for great sums. They used to be smuggled in, back when we had customs. Those days are long gone.” She smiled, rubbing at her eyes. “You look tired, Keenan.”
“You too.”
“I think we could all do with some sleep.” She caught Pippa’s stare and smiled sweetly. Pippa turned away. She worked with Franco on inputting PAD coordinates on an alien system; then she slammed the Raptor Boat forward through the Milk Sea on waves of pure white.
The mist was burned off within the hour, to be replaced by towering thunder clouds gathering quickly, silently, eerily overhead. The humidity was great, increasing by the minute, or so it felt; the air was filled with a charge of static, and the weather left most of the group in a state of undress as Pippa piloted the Raptor unchallenged across the apparently deserted waters of the Milk Sea.
“It’s gonna tonk it down,” said Franco, eventually, face beaming red with sunburn.
“Good,” said Keenan, “I could do with a little coolant.”
Pippa glanced at him, then at Rebekka. “I can see that,” she said. Rebekka looked away.
They cruised through the day, hours dragging by in the heat as still clouds towered and the humidity increased. Rebekka and Betezh basked at the rear of the boat, Betezh’s arms tied tight behind him, his eyes burning with an ever-increasing hatred. Pippa piloted, Keenan navigated, and Franco checked their weapons and played with the WarSuits, checking circuits and internal logic systems. Cam followed at a discreet pace, small black shell spinning, tiny yellow lights flickering against his battered shell.
Eventually, the rain came.
One minute the sea was calm, then a wind blew cool air in a welcome gasping relief. It grew dark. The heavens suddenly opened and a tropical storm smashed down.
Everyone on the boat turned faces to the sky and basked in the deluge of warm raindrops.
After an hour, something loomed ahead through the pounding rain. Made shapeless by the storm, it rose from the sea like a titan, an edifice, a cliff-side. Pippa halted, stealth engines back in play, the Raptor bobbing and rising on swells, then sweeping down into troughs.
“What do you think?”
“We have few options,” said Keenan, hoisting his slick MPK. “We need food and water, better weapons and ammunition. I wish we knew what bastard blew us out of the sky; I’d like to give him some payback. A few bullets up the arse, for sure.”
“The WarSuits are good to go,” said Franco, glancing up. He held a small cross-head screwdriver. Keenan stared at it.
“What’ve you been doing with that?”
“Tweaking.”
“Well, don’t touch my fucking suit. I want it bespoke, not meddled with by a monkey on anti-depressants.”
“Harsh, Keenan.”
“Well, just keep your twin-thumb paws off.”
“Plan?”
“Me and Franco will suit up, swim ahead, check out this Gem Rig. If it’s clear, we’ll call you in.”
“And if its not?”
Keenan grinned with his teeth; and without humour. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Keenan and Franco, guns strapped to their backs, swam through the rain. The Gem Rig came gradually closer, towering above them for what seemed like a hundred storeys, but was probably closer to fifty. It shifted gently like a floatation skyscraper, huge waist-thick mooring cables spanning from higher reaches and disappearing under the milk.
Keenan stopped, treading water. Rain smashed around him.
“We OK?” said Franco.
“You’ve got better eyesight, but I can see no lookouts.”
“Me either, and the PAD is clear.”
“I don’t trust tek. It can be fooled.”
“The PAD is advanced, Keenan.”
“Stuff the PAD.”
“You’re in a fine mood.”
“Well tek landed us in this crap. Why didn’t the Hornet detect an attack? What a load of shit. I trust only my eyes and ears from now on... and my gun.”
“A fine philosophy.”
“Let’s move.”
They swam closer, under the shadow of the looming Gem Rig. Up close, it was truly, truly massive. A dark mass with decks rearing above them led to boxed-in quarters, then, further up, cranes and platforms, huge factories on stilts, then even further up the edifice more sections reminiscent of a hotel rather than a drilling and mining platform.
“It has no right to sit on the sea like that,” said Franco. “It shouldn’t be able to float.”
Keenan grunted something incomprehensible.
They found a wide landing pad, once commonly used for boats but now rusted by the high salt and mineral content of the Milk Sea. Warily, they climbed free, each covering the other with MPK. Standing in the dark WarSuits—which had adapted organically to fit them like a second armoured skin—both men stared up at the monster above and around them.