Veteran (6 page)

I stood up. Despite dampened nerves and internal painkillers, the flames were becoming too much. The chemical retardant of the fire extinguisher came as a welcome release. The barman put the extinguisher back beneath the bar. On the bar was a dirty glass of the same muck we’d drunk earlier. I picked it up, knocked it back and made a disgusted noise.

The coat was a little blackened but would be fine. My jeans were mostly destroyed and my skin was burnt down to the dermal armour on the bottom part of my legs. My left hand and much of my face had been burnt. My hair was a burnt brittle mess coming away in clumps. This burnt visage was what MacFarlane saw as I made my way towards him, slowly reloading my guns. The remaining patrons and hookers in the bar just lay low as I passed. Some of them whimpered, but most were used to scenes like this.

I stood over MacFarlane, still smoking gently. One of the girls had managed to escape but the other one MacFarlane was using as a shield, the pretty gun in his other hand. The pimp was lying between the table and the couch he had been sat on. Not for the first time I wondered how people like this managed to control all the psychopaths they had working for them. I pulled a chair out and sat down, lighting a cigarette, the flickering flames illuminating my ruined face. MacFarlane was desperately trying to think of a way out.

‘That’s illegal ware. You’re boosted way to high. They’ll kill you for that, you know, take you down. CSWAT will be on their way.’

‘I’m working. Let her go,’ I said, meaning the terrified sixteen-year-old girl. MacFarlane seized on this. He put the little gun to her head.

‘Yeah, yeah. Walk out of here or I’ll kill her.’

‘Chivalry is alive and well in Dundee,’ I said sarcastically. MacFarlane did not seem to understand. I sighed and fixed him with a stare. I’d been told that black lenses had the effect of making their owners look like soulless monsters. An effect probably further heightened by my burnt appearance. I pointed the Mastodon at the pair on the floor. ‘Come to terms with your death because you have sent a lot better men before you,’ I said to him. ‘I don’t care about some stranger’s death. It just seems to be a waste to me, so decide if she’s going with you.’ The girl started crying, racking sobs shaking her body. MacFarlane considered my words. He let her go and she scrambled away. It was probably the single best act he had ever done in his life.

‘Where is it?’ I asked MacFarlane.

‘In the stateroom,’ MacFarlane said, overcome with hopelessness.

‘The what?’ I asked.

‘The captain’s cabin. Two decks down, you can’t miss it. It’s the nicest cabin, the fucking captain’s cabin.’ I got up and then stopped.

‘What did you want it for?’ I asked, still assuming that there was some kind of suicidal Them fifth-column cult on Earth. MacFarlane seemed confused at the question.

‘Well, I was going to pimp it,’ he said, as if that was obvious. I let this sink in and started to laugh. MacFarlane looked pissed off that I was laughing at his grand business plan.

‘I could have charged a fortune to let people come here and fuck one of those things, just like they fucked us,’ he said defiantly.

‘You idiot,’ I managed between the laughter. ‘It’s a biological machine designed for killing.’

‘We could have cut holes in it,’ MacFarlane said defensively. This only made me laugh harder. Small men, small ideas, I thought.

‘You mean you are confronted with something from another planet, a completely alien species, and all you can think to do with it is fuck it?’ I asked. MacFarlane obviously did not like being laughed at and was becoming angry despite the danger.

‘What’s so funny? People will pay to fuck anything ...’ The report of the Mastodon was very loud in the bridge. MacFarlane slumped to the ground. I exhaled smoke, all trace of amusement gone. I looked at the corpse of the pimp for a moment and then stood up.

‘Mister?’ a timid voice said. I turned to look at the frightened girl MacFarlane had used as a shield. I didn’t answer her. Instead I reached down and searched MacFarlane until I found the pimp’s money roll. ‘You’re wrong, you know,’ the girl said. I peeled off some of the dirty euros and offered them to her. She snatched them out of my hand and I pocketed the rest.

‘Yeah? About what?’ I asked.

‘About it being a killer.’ I turned to look at her. ‘It’s not a killer, it’s beautiful,’ she said. I had no idea what she was talking about but something about her earnestness bothered me. I headed towards the internal stairs that would take me down to see one of the monsters that had killed so many of my friends. Was it psychologically healthier to want to have sex with an alien or just kill it? I wondered. You’d hope it depended on the circumstances.

5

Dundee

Despite the ruin of my face I was feeling no pain as I edged my way down the stairway deeper into the ship. The subdued lighting and peeling red paint were a long-forgotten attempt at ambience, but now, to my drug-addled brain, they gave the place an other-worldly feel.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped. My hearing could pick up the sound of heavy breathing around the corner, the sound of nervous people shifting. I looked through thermographics but warm pipes and a multitude of people in surrounding rooms confused the images. I peeked around the corner and brought my head straight back as two nervous gunmen let rip with SMGs loaded with slugs too high a velocity for the weapons. The bullets ripped through the bulkhead where I’d been standing and continued on their path. I heard a scream. One of the stray bullets had caught a working boy somewhere deeper in the ship. I had retreated part the way back up the stairs.

‘It’s all over,’ I shouted. ‘Everyone’s dead. MacFarlane’s dead, you’re not working for anyone any more. Just walk away.’ There was a discussion between them as to the merits of my offer.

‘Bullshit, man!’ One of them shouted. ‘You’re government, you’re going to kill everyone who came into contact with it.’

‘Then why haven’t I?’ I asked, wondering why people made it so hard for me not to kill them. ‘Look it’s up to you, either you die here now or you take your chances and walk away.’ There was another discussion followed by the sounds of feet pounding metal. I glanced around the corner; both the gunmen had gone.

Leaning against the bulkhead, I replaced the shells in the Mastodon with disrupter rounds. They were specifically designed to inflict the most damage on the liquid flesh technology of Their bioborg killers. My hand was shaking. I was afraid. I had spent so much time Earth side, where nothing was frightening compared to the war. I’d forgotten what the fear was like.

The last time I’d faced a Ninja I had been armed to the teeth, pumped on combat drugs, aided by my squad, and many of them still ended up dead, not to mention the weirdness that happened to Gregor. If this was one of their Ninjas then it had better be very injured or I was screwed. It was then I heard movement from the next corridor.

Looking around the corner, I saw about twenty of the more upmarket (by rig standards) hookers heading into what I assumed was the captain’s cabin. Angry johns were following some of them. I pinched the bridge of my nose, crushing burnt skin; vague signals of pain pushed their way through the drugs and the nerve dampening. Unsure what to do, I made my way down the corridor, straight-arming one of the johns, who was trying to drag a teenage boy back to a cabin by the hair. I pushed my way through the hookers, a task made easier by my frightening burnt appearance, to the door of the stateroom.

It was definitely one of Them lying on the cabin bed. Manacles that presumably had been shackling him lay on the floor now. It was the most human-looking one I had ever seen. It was like a human-shaped and proportioned pool of oil, its head a smooth featureless black dome. There were no visible weapon appendages apparent but I knew that Their Ninjas were morphic. In terms of apparent physiology the only real difference was it had seven long fingers on both hands and it looked slightly smaller than the average human. The light formed rainbow-like reflections in its flesh and I could make out a distorted view of myself - for the first time I could see the burn damage.

I watched my reflection extend the revolver towards the alien. The hookers rushed to the creature and surrounded it, forming a shield between it and me. As they touched it some of its reactive liquid flesh solidified. Their touch also caused ripples all over it, like pebbles dropped in a dark stream. I’d seen this before. The black liquid on the floor and the cot meant it was injured. Good, I thought. The thing was moving, trying to push its human shield away.

‘Get out the way,’ I ordered tersely. The hookers did not move though they looked terrified. ‘Now!’ I roared. Many of them jumped, a couple of them started crying softly. The tears made me feel like shit. These people were among the lowest on the food chain. The exploited’s exploited and they had nowhere to go but down as they became more and more used up. It was why I’d always preferred the artifice of the sense booths. This didn’t stop me from pulling back the hammer on the revolver, largely an affectation but it was intimidating. More were crying but they did not move; they seemed ready to die for this thing. I wondered if this was some kind of phermonic effect, a form of psychological warfare or mind control that the wounded alien had used to influence the prostitutes.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked softly, though the revolver did not waver. I wanted this bad day over with.

‘Please don’t kill him,’ said one of the prostitutes, a boy whose age I did not want to guess.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘It’s not a bad thing,’ replied one of the other hookers, a slightly older girl. She was not crying, though she looked scared, but her life had probably used up all her tears. She was pretty. The kind of pretty that wouldn’t make her pimp want to put her under a laser to turn her into a sleazier version of whoever that week’s face was and then have her work off her debt for the surgery. She had a bob of black hair, freckles and pretty brown eyes. I looked at her, though the revolver’s smartlink enabled me to keep aiming at the Ninja on the cot.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know what you think you know, but I’ve seen these things before and they just want to kill humans. It’s doing something to you. I’m not sure what, but whatever it is, it’s not real. I can give you some money but you need to get out of the way.’

‘Have you ever spoken to one before?’ the girl asked. I groaned inwardly. My initial interest was giving way to irritation. To make matters worse, the comms icon on my visual display started winking. The Major was trying to get through.

‘They don’t communicate with humans; all they want to do is kill. Do you understand?’ I told the girl.

‘This one talks,’ the girl said. I was lost for words. I’d never heard of this happening before. Not to the air force’s Space Command first contact team that was initially murdered by the genocidal aliens, nor at any point during the war. I took Rolleston’s call while deciding what to do next. An image of the Major appeared in a small box at one side of my visual display.

‘You’ve found it.’ It was more of a statement than a question.

‘Yes,’ I sub-vocalised.

‘Neutralised it?’ the Major asked.

‘Not yet.’ The digital representation of the Major looked troubled momentarily.

‘Problems?’ he asked.

‘Of a sort.’

‘Of what sort?’ the Major asked, becoming impatient.

‘Collateral,’ I answered. I knew the lack of information would infuriate the Major.

‘Neutralise them as well,’ he ordered.

‘I’m not shooting a sixteen-year-old girl,’ I answered. The prostitutes surrounding the wounded alien were aware that I was having a sub-vocal conversation but their protective encirclement remained firm.

‘You’ll do as you’re told,’ the Major growled.

‘If you didn’t want me to do this my way, why bother getting me to do it in the first place? After all, Bran’s here on the ground.’ The Major looked like he was about to issue more orders, probably backed with threats that I would have had to take seriously. Working on the principle that it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission, I thanked the angry-looking Major for his call and broke the link.

I switched my attention back to the girl.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘My real name or what we tell the customers?’ she asked, trying to use bravado to overcome her fear and failing.

‘Whichever.’

‘Morag, Morag McGrath.’ I assumed it was her real name and briefly wondered who would call their child Morag in this day and age.

‘Okay, Morag, let’s hear what it has to say,’ I said.

‘You can’t hear it,’ she said. ‘You don’t have enough flesh.’ Nice, I thought. If the girl was to be believed, a member of an alien race that wanted to wipe out humanity was questioning my humanity. On the other hand, very few of the hookers had any form of cybernetics. They couldn’t afford it, and most of their customers wanted smooth flesh, not hard metal and plastic. I smiled.

‘That’s convenient, Morag. How’s it talking to you and your friends?’ I asked.

‘It’s like a tickle.’ It would seem that Morag was now the spokesperson for both the alien and the rest of the prostitutes. Morag seemed to be thinking about what she was going to say next. ‘Back here,’ she said after some consideration, touching the back of her head.

What the fuck was going on? It was almost like a cult. It had to be exerting control over them. Perhaps they were more susceptible because of their youth. The problem was at any moment Bran was going to turn up and kill everyone.

‘Okay, Morag, you’ve seen the vizzis, yes? Them, the aliens who attack us and are trying to wipe us out, the war we’ve been fighting for the last sixty years, a war for survival, yes?’ She nodded.

‘Well that,’ I said, nodding towards the alien, ‘is one of them. An infiltrator, what we call a Ninja, and it is here to kill someone, and I have to stop it. What it’s doing is called mind control. I’m afraid I’m going to have to move you and get on with it. If you can leave the room, you should. I’ll try not to hurt any of you.’ As one they all wrapped themselves around the wounded alien, causing ripples in its wounded physiology. All except Morag.