Biohell (49 page)

“Now!” snapped Keenan.

Keenan and Franco’s guns roared,
bullets screaming at Justice D who, without any sense of human
unpredictability, and with all the imagination of a goat, was caught totally
unawares. Bullets screamed off the HTank’s hull in bright streamers of sparks;
Knuckles and Olga ran for the protection of the depot buildings, with Keenan
and Franco covering them, weapons juddering, barrels snarling fire, faces set
in grim determination as...

As MICHELLE slowly awoke.

She stood, towering over the
HTanks. Barrels squealed on ratchets, following her up as Justice D, still
poking out of his turret and mumbling anally about how he’d been so rudely
interrupted in his diatribe, and how you couldn’t trust humans to listen to a
decent sermon on rights and responsibilities of the SIM, dropped his jaw and
leant backwards to fit the whole of MICHELLE’S form into his false mechanical
vision.

Go easy now, my little honey pot,
thought Xakus as
he backed away from the impending slaughter.
HTanks can be dangerous weapons
depending on what shells they’re carrying.
..

Don’t worry,
thought back MICHELLE.
I have
every angle covered. Go and join Knuckles and Olga. Me and the boys can sort
out this little raiding party!

An HTank fired, twin guns
recoiling with a massive
boom.
MICHELLE slammed left, clanking, joints
rolling as shells whistled past her flat vertical ears. She leapt forward, a
huge fist slamming down to smash with terrifying force against the HTank’s
hull, shunting it down into the ground which cracked and buckled under impact.
Revving engines, the other HTanks leapt forward, treads squealing, guns
pounding. MICHELLE dodged the shells, grabbed one HTank by twin barrels, and
rolling back, twisting, she hurled it away in a flail of broken flapping
panels. The HTank connected with a wall of Porky Pauper SlamTruks, there was
spark of ignition and a fireball raged at the sky carrying whirling SlamTruk
trailers and parts of a destroyed and decimated HTank... and illuminating the
whole depot and surrounding warehouses in eerie green firelight. Smoke rolled
out like a nuclear pall, lit by flaming shards of molten metal. Noise slapped
the sky.

More guns fired, and MICHELLE
stomped down on an HTank with a huge cubic boot, again and again with rending,
tearing squeals of compressing alloy. The HTank finally groaned, and collapsed
into a buckled V.

The HTank sporting Justice D had
reversed, hard, to lead the battle from the rear. MICHELLE leapt again, the
whole Porky Pauper depot shaking as she grabbed an HTank in each mammoth fist
and whirled them through the air to collide, with a thundering crash. Again and
again she smashed the HTanks together, trailing cables and panels and squealing
treads, as far below Franco and Keenan retreated, MPKs thundering until with a
final, titanic crash the battered HTanks exploded and sailed across the depot,
hitting the ground in a tangled mash of merging melting alloy, guns bent,
wheels skittering free, fire pounding the sky. Fiery grooves scarred the depot’s
concretealloy as the mangled mess slid to a halt with a groan. Keenan and
Franco looked at one another, ears ringing after the harsh metal onslaught.
MICHELLE turned, as Justice D’s final HTank
slammed
and the shell caught
her in the midriff. Her hands fastened around the glowing ball, locked, for a moment,
as her head snapped up in realisation. The shell detonated, and fire raged over
MICHELLE, engulfing her in screaming, billowing heat. Below her metal boots
concretealloy buckled, cracked, and formed irregular pools of molten metal.

Xakus surged forward...

Keenan grabbed him. “Whoa, pal.
You can’t go out there!”

Xakus strained for a moment. “I
have to help her!”

“You can’t help her,” hissed
Franco, voice low, Kekra against his cheek. “What you gonna do? Kill a tank?”

Xakus strained, and Keenan had to
use both hands. “Wait!” he snapped. “Watch!”

The flames started to die down.
As smoke and flames cleared, they saw MICHELLE was scarred, blackened, but
still... alive. She had dropped to one knee, and with a creak her head lifted
to fix on...

Justice D, striding through
clouds of thick belching smoke. Metal debris littered the floor, twisted and buckled,
reflecting the glow of flickering fire. He carried what looked like a long
rifle, cradled in his arms. He seemed perfectly calm, tiny, out of his depth as
he stared up at the fifty-foot bio-mechanical killer with something akin to a
child’s curiosity. MICHELLE towered over him, smoke billowing from her
shrapnel-embedded shell. Her face snarled...

Keenan blinked. Something
clicked
bad in his mind. Recognition. “Shit,” he snarled, MPK rising but it was too
late.

Justice D lowered the IMS—an
industrial molecule stripper, used predominately for hardcore demolition work.
It reduced most materials to component atoms. The IMS was whining like a caged
animal. Justice D and MICHELLE locked false eyes... digital to digital... and
Justice D fired.

There was a
whump.

MICHELLE’S legs were severed at
the knees, and she toppled forward with a look of surprise on her woven face.
Her steel eyes hissed as panels slid across one another.

“No!” screamed Xakus, sprinting
towards her.

“Franco?” said Keenan, voice
steady.

“I’m on it.”

Franco smoothly drew his Bausch
& Harris Sniper Rifle; he steadied the weapon, and SSGK digital sights
hummed. Franco released his breath, calm, and squeezed off a single shot. The
bullet whirred across the clearing and slapped into one of Justice D’s
mechanical eyes, flipping the SIM backwards to lie, stunned, on the ground.

“Good shot.”

“Cheers.”

“He’s not dead.”

“I
know
that.”

“I’ll get us transport. Keep
everybody together. Here.”

Franco winked. “I can do
that,
mate.”

Keenan jogged off around the
smoke-filled depot.

Franco aimed down the SSGK,
watched Justice D push himself onto his knees. SIMs were notoriously tough;
what Franco often called
hard bastards to kill.
He sighted carefully,
knowing it was pointless shooting at the SIM’s armoured hide, arms, legs, neck,
and even head. Even a Bausch & Harris round wouldn’t penetrate. But a SIM’s
eyes... Franco grinned. That was its weak spot.

Knuckles touched Franco’s arm. “Is
there anything I can do?”

“No lad. But it’s a brave offer.
Thanks.”

“Why didn’t the bullet enter his
skull?”

“Because it’s solid,” grinned
Franco, then glanced, worried, at Xakus. The old black man had run across the
buckled, glowing, smoke-filled depot, kicking through bits of smouldering metal
and savaged mechanism. He fell to his knees beside MICHELLE’S huge, angular
face. They seemed to be talking, but without words.

Franco relaxed, and aimed again.
Justice D struggled to his feet, anger his mistress, and staggered towards the
IMS. His intention was obvious: he was going to mow them all down with the
devastating industrial weapon. Vaporise them into component dust! Franco
breathed free, gave himself a single, permissible nod, and squeezed the trigger
for a second time.

The bullet slammed Justice D’s
one working eye, shattering the high-tech optics and slamming off into the sky.
Justice D hit the ground again, twisting, and this time the SIM groaned.

In the background, fire roared a
symphony.

Green light shimmered, sending
long shadows stretching over the scene.

Heat pulsed across the desecrated
depot yard.

Franco strode past the dying form
of MICHELLE, to halt at the SIM’s groping hands. He kicked the IMS away, and it
clattered over broken metal. At the noise, Justice D lunged for Franco, but the
squaddie leapt back. He smiled at the ironic reversal.

“What’s it like to live in fear,
little man?”

“The human has blinded me! The
human will die for this!”

“I think you’ve uttered your last
threat. Buttered your last toast. And believe me, mate, you’ve eaten your last
pork pie!” Franco turned, stared at Xakus who was weeping, rocking backwards
and forwards, his hands on MICHELLE’S dying, pain-filled face. The
bio-mechanical war machine had leaked a lake of blood. Franco could see tubes
and wire erupting like arteries from her severed legs; they were still pumping,
gushing, foaming ersatz blood into the gutter.

Knuckles ran to Xakus, and helped
the man to his feet. Franco joined them, and placed his hand tenderly on Xakus’
shoulder. Behind them, the SIM started to squeal and wail, high-pitched
feminine shrieks which shattered the ambience of the war-buckled depot as he
pounded his fists against the ground in pure frustration.

“She died to save us,” said
Franco.

“I know that. But... I could
never explain the bond between us. She was more human than human to me. I...
loved her.”

Franco nodded, knowing he did not
have the words to ease Xakus’s pain. Then he turned, and Olga approached. She
pointed at the sky, through clouds of smoke. “The battle is growing close. It
will be here soon. Then we know which sides fight, yes?”

“I think we have a bigger problem
than that,” said Knuckles.

“What’s that, lad?”

The final, remaining HTank—which
had shelled MICHELLE and given Justice D time to attack on foot with the
IMS—revved its engines with a spurt of chemical exhaust. It had crept forward
through the smoke, masked, hidden, overlooked. Closer and closer... until it stopped
only a short distance from the group.

“Oh dear,” said Olga, eyes wide.
She cracked huge knuckles and squared herself. “Time to fight.”

“Damn and bloody bugger! I forgot
about that bloody badgering bastard!” Franco scrabbled in his pack for bombs as
the HTank roared and charged, slamming and crunching through debris crushing
and pounding and pulping everything under compressor tracks as huge twin guns
turned, rotated, with an agonising precision to reveal twin black eyes locked
on the group with a promise of violence and disintegration and death...

~ * ~

Keenan
climbed the ladder, rungs cold even through gloves. He reached the corrugated
roof of the depot out-building, squinted through smoke, heard the rev of
engines and sprinted with all his might, boots pounding the roof as the HTank
sped below and he leapt, teeth grinding, fists clenched, landing on the HTank’s
hull in a crouch. He popped the pin from a BABE concussion grenade and dropped
it through the open hatchway. There came a muffled
crack.
The HTank
slewed sideways, missing the huddled gathering of vulnerable, shivering flesh,
and grinding to a shuddering, juddering halt. The engine died. Keenan, crouched
on the turret, glanced down at Franco who gave him a grim nod and thumbs up.
Keenan aimed his MPK through the hatchway and bullets screamed, echoing and
ricocheting in the HTank’s belly. Smoke rolled up from the dark hatch. It stunk
of death.

“I’m coming out!” The voice was
gravelled, and filled with a heavy, guttural coughing.

Keenan took a backward step down
the HTank’s hull as the SIM appeared, bloody and tattered, torn and with one
side of its semi-mechanical head caved in. Gore glistened, and blood had run
out from beneath shattered mechanical eyes.

The SIM struggled out, and
staggered across the hull of the HTank. It dropped to the floor, stumbled, and
fell to its knees with Franco covering it with his Kekras.

Warily, Keenan leapt down into
the HTank’s interior, then reappeared. “It’s clear.”

Franco glanced at Xakus. “You
want to kill it?”