Death system, p.1
Death System, page 1
part #3 of Zombicide Invader Series
Zombicide Invader
Death System
The Xenos’ bodies started to stack up. Shawna’s faceplate dripped with red rain. She had no time to feel fear. Her mind was too preoccupied with exterminating the zombies who were doing their damnedest to tear her to pieces and dine on her guts. She turned in a circle, slashing the air with the saw, sweat running into her eyes, when she realized there were no more Xenos to kill and Bak-Irp was barking at her. When she lifted her finger, the piercing whine of the blades cut off immediately, deafening in its silence, only to be replaced by her own rapid breathing.
“There’s more of them,” Bak-Irp said. “Out there. And they’re coming quick.”
She looked in the direction where he pointed the smoking barrel of his gun.
Dozens. No, not dozens. Hundreds. Too many to count…
More Zombicide from Aconyte
Zombicide Invader
Planet Havoc by Tim Waggoner
Terror World by Cath Lauria
Zombicide
Last Resort by Josh Reynolds
All or Nothing by Josh Reynolds
Do or Die by Josh Reynolds
Zombicide Black Plague
Age of the Undead by C L Werner
Island of the Undead by C L Werner
Chapter One
Bubblegum and Gunpowder
HIGH TERROR RISK Cellblock
Extreme Security Penitentiary (XSecPen)
Galactic Coalition Territory: Location Unspecified
Bad things start small, the sergeant thought as he inserted the contraband vial into the middle of a stale dinner roll. The vial was the size of his fat pinkie tip. The nugget it contained resembled a shriveled black raisin wearing a wiry purple vest. He pinched the top of the roll, sealing the hole he’d made, then slid the dinner tray back into the service trolley.
He warmed his hands on the cart.
None of my business is what that thing is, he added to his inner monologue.
The sergeant got paid not to think about situations like this. He let things slide. Ignored whatever he saw or heard. Turned a blind eye. Clammed up quiet as a bubble if his superiors asked him questions. Playing dumb for profit was the name of the game. The dark morsel was likely the latest variety of black-market space dope, an anodyne to soothe the pain and misery of being locked away and forgotten; it filled the hole of boredom.
Nope. It’s none of my DAMN business, he reminded himself. Who cared if these prisoners fried what was left of their slithery brains? XSecPen’s pop was exclusively hyperviolent outlaws.
Most of the time the sergeant’s off-the-books side hustle paid him not to do things that were the key responsibilities of his main gig. That main gig being his position as a supervising correctional officer at the toughest, most secret, and inescapable penal institution in Coalition-controlled Terran space.
Rarely, as a part of his shady arrangement, he’d be asked to carry out a special favor and take a highly risky, illegal action, the kind that made his butt cheeks clench up and broke him out in nervous cold sweats from head to toe. There was no doubt about what he was doing here. Shit that not only would get him fired – if anybody legit discovered his dirty deeds – but would end with him locked away in a cage of his own. And a prison guard who ends up in prison is dead meat walking. That much was understood. So special favors were a big deal.
Usually, the inmates asked you to sneak in prohibited items, which might be anything, since their lives inside XSecPen were spartan, the result of punitive deprivation. For procuring ordinary goods, outside food or a communications device, he received handsome compensation. Other times, like today, he acted as a courier. For these missions the price tag was higher. This case of hide-the-vial-in-the-roll was going to earn him a pair of first-class shuttle tickets and a nice, long vacation to the swankiest, beachiest, rum-and-coconut-creamiest, luxury resort of his choosing. All he had to do was deliver the right tray to the right cell. Then he’d be home free.
He almost felt the rays of an alien sun beating down on his thick, bullish neck. Virtually digging his toes into warm sand, he tasted the spray of ocean waves – big, pink, foamy ones, the smell of which reminded him of bubblegum and gunpowder. His brain flicked through the vivid screen images he’d searched up last night. Bartender droids wearing funny black bowties carrying platters of cocktails. Rich tourists laid out on loungers, sipping frozen drinks, without a care in the galaxy. If everything went smoothly today, soon he’d be joining their ranks…
An angry buzz tore him from his daydream. The cellblock gate was sliding up. It took a while. The gate slab was as thick as his massive chest, and it weighed enough to pancake a cell extraction bot. He’d seen that happen once, when the emergency gate-drop malfunctioned during a riot drill. The sergeant’s biggest problem walked under the gate, beelining straight for him.
The new guard.
As part of a correctional department interplanetary exchange program, this Fushnallan gal was visiting to observe how things were done at XSecPen. She’d been assigned to shadow the sergeant for tonight’s shift. The paranoid part of his brain wondered if she was a spy. He didn’t really know her or want to. What he did know made him uneasy. As a descendant from the Trappist-C planet Fushnal, she was an ocean-breather who wore a recycling tank on her back to keep from suffocating. Her rough, orange skin and bugged-out eyes gave him the creeps. The worst part was the remnant dorsal fin running along the top of her head. It twitched whenever she got excited. Right now, it was jiggling like fresh bait.
When I go on my vacation, I’m going to charter a fishing skimmer to hook your relatives, he thought, chuckling. From all reports, the Fushnallan was a squeaky-clean, by-the-book operator, or at least that was how she acted. Some people could fool you. For example, nobody would’ve suspected that the sergeant was utterly corrupt. Publicly he made a point of being tough on the inmates, cracking skulls and kicking ass. It provided the cover he needed. In private, he was another – much worse – person. That secret sent a thrill up his spine.
“Sergeant Randle,” the new guard’s voice gurgled a greeting through her recycler mic.
“Good evening, Officer Fishstick.”
“The name is Ishnik, sergeant. Ishnik Tal,” she corrected him.
“My mistake.”
Her chilly expression told him she knew it hadn’t been.
He offered his hand, squeezing her fingers in a vice grip, feeling the clammy coolness of her flesh through her tactical duty gloves. “Call me Shark,” he said. The corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement, thinking how ironic it was that here he was talking to seafood, yet he was the one that people called Shark. He held on until he felt her squirm. A floppy fish! He let her go.
“Ready to get started?” he asked.
Ishnik took a step back, looking less confident than when she first entered.
“Yes, sir.” The recycler distorted her voice, as if she were inside an aquarium.
Sounds like somebody drowning, he thought.
Shark smiled, showing off his titanium claim to fame. Once upon a time, when he was just a newjack, one week into working his first lockup, an inmate shattered Randle’s jaw, kicking out his front choppers after the gung-ho rookie made the mistake of trying to break up a fight alone. Concussed and bloodied, lying in the infirmary spitting out tooth fragments, the greenhorn guard decided that his repaired mouth would send a message. He asked the doc for a cyborg jaw and told him not to bother matching his teeth. “Leave the steel raw,” he said. His face would be a sign every con could read: Mess with me, and I’ll take a big, shiny bite out of your ass.
His plan worked. All the inmates soon knew about the guard with the metal grin.
The Shark was born.
He made a point of showing how powerful his new dental implants were to the dirtbag who’d jumped him that day. That was an ugly business, the first of many violent encounters.
“This your first time in High Terror?” Shark asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yes. I’m looking forward to seeing how the cellblock runs.”
He watched her doing her best to appear calm. But nobody ever felt calm inside HT. If you did, you didn’t last long. The place was a kill zone. If you lost your edge, you lost your life.
“Shall we begin the tour?” Shark pushed the trolley. Ishnik followed. The HT unit was quiet – the effect of solitary, soundproofed cells. Today, it was so hushed that the squeaking of the trolley’s front wheel sounded like a cranky alarm going off. The unit had wide hallways and low ceilings. All of it was sterile white – the better to spot anything, or anyone, moving around that didn’t belong. It felt like a cold storage warehouse, which in a way it was. Bodies were stored here. Inside XSecPen’s walls lived the worst of the worst criminals in Terran space.
Shark lifted a thick, translucent badge he wore on a chain around his neck, waved it at a panel embedded to their right.
“How are the inmates classified on the unit?” Ishnik asked as they passed a body scanner.
“Equality reigns in HT. Everybody’s a lifer. Locked up day and night except for exercise, meals, or scheduled appointments. We’re in lockdown tonight. Warden’s orders. No explanation. That’s typical. Anyway, during lockdown everybody eats in their cells. One body per cell. Cells are always lit. The facility’s white lights caused mood swings and headaches, so the cell lights were switched to yellow. Higher-ups aim to keep the inmates docile. It doesn’t work. You never open a cell alone. Pass all objects through the delivery ports. Isolation is the point. Whenev er convicts get together, the danger rises. But the do-gooders won’t let us keep them in solitary indefinitely. Every contact is a lethal hazard. We do not rehabilitate here. Our job is to punish.”
Ishnik didn’t offer an opinion. Shark watched as her head fin twitched.
Squeak, squeak, squeak went the trolley wheel. Despite the constantly circulating ventilation system, the air remained musky and pungent. Shark wondered if Ishnik could detect it through her nose-hose. He’d heard Fushnallans had a superior sense of smell. At the end of a shift, the brilliant arctic whiteness of the walls made Shark’s eyes hurt and gave him a headache. At least he could blink. Fushnallans had no eyelids, only a transparent nictitating membrane. He caught Ishnik focusing up ahead at the row of sealed, glassy doorways to their right: the cells.
“Showtime,” he said.
Chapter Two
Crimson Jumpsuits
“They can’t hear us. Or see us.” Shark thumbed his nose at the first prisoner to demonstrate. The inmate on the other side of the thick, transparent barrier showed no reaction. “Think of the door as an unbreakable screen. We can see them. From their side, the screen is opaque until we tap.” Shark indicated an exterior control panel. On the display were a series of illuminated icons labeled Visual, Sound, Cell Open, Wash, Choke-Gas, and Stun. “This guy’s a Thassian, as you can see.”
The prisoner was performing handstand push-ups in the middle of his cell. Stocky, powerfully built, he pumped himself up and down mechanically. His thick tail curved forward for balance while his pale face remained expressionless. He might’ve been reading a book or meditating. Through the speaker, his exhalations sounded like jets of pressurized steam escaping.
“Do they all wear dark red jumpsuits?” Ishnik seemed intrigued by the choice of color.
“Crimson uniforms for High Terror inmates. Helps people remember why they’re here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Spilling blood? They’re all killers of one stripe or another,” he said.
“Ahh.” Ishnik raised her chin. “A human bias. You see, Fushnallan blood isn’t red.”
Shark shook his head. The kind of shit that aliens noticed. It bothered him not knowing what other observations she might be making while they worked together. He had to be careful. Shark cursed his luck that today of all days he had to be teamed with a wide-eyed alien outsider.
Shark used two fingers to hit the Visual and Sound icons.
The Thassian’s gaze shot toward the door, instantly alert; he continued his push-ups.
“Feeding time, Bak-Irp,” Shark said. “Come to the door.”
The Thassian finished his set of exercises, then flipped to his feet, wiping his face with a dingy, threadbare towel before he approached them. His skin was bone white, like a skeleton morphed into a bodybuilder. Rows of subdermal nubs formed a “V” over his hairless skull.
Shark popped the Audio icon to OFF.
“Ugly bastard, isn’t he?” he said to Ishnik. “I don’t know which is worse, those Thassian face wrinkles, or the way they glare at you with their deadeye peepers.”
Ishnik kept silent. Maybe she was pondering what his opinion was concerning Fushnallan physical characteristics. Shark opened the trolley, withdrawing a tray, not the one he’d doctored.
“What is this prisoner’s crime?” Ishnik asked, studying the Thassian.
“Yaalo Bak-Irp? Guy was a bounty hunter until the day he decided he didn’t need to bring in fugitives anymore. Appointing himself judge, jury, and executioner. Bagged a dozen wanted criminals before they caught him. You ask me? He was doing a public service. The courts discourage vigilantism. Bak’s quiet, but he’s smart. Never underestimate the quiet ones.”
“I’ll remember that.” Ishnik assessed Shark coldly with her flat jellied eyes.
It sounded like she might be mocking him, but he wasn’t certain. Shark knew he sometimes ran his mouth when he felt stressed. He didn’t ask to be saddled with an observer. What was the point of these exchanges anyway? She wasn’t about to tell him how to do his job.
Shark decided he didn’t care if she was pissed. She was a nuisance and liability, not to mention a pain in his ass. He preferred working solo. He keyed open the port with his badge. After removing the lid, he served the tray.
Bak-Irp lifted the food to his face; his nostrils pinched open and closed. His lips curled in disgust. He poked at a slice of Thassian nutrient loaf, nudging the lump of congealed blue gravy.
Shark popped the Audio ON.
“Eat up, Bak. I had a look at this week’s menu. It doesn’t get any better.”
Before the inmate could answer, Shark cut the Audio and Visual off from Bak-Irp’s side.
The Thassian sneered in their general direction.
Shark walked up to the barrier, his face inches away from the Thassian’s. “Sometimes I swear he can see us through the screenblocker.” The guard raised a middle finger, rubbing it on the glass. Oblivious, Bak-Irp set his dinner aside and resumed his exercise. The guards moved on. Shark resumed talking to Ishnik, describing the unit’s population.
“HT’s headcount is twenty-one,” he said. “That’s max for us. We’ve even got a waiting list. That’s how popular this hellhole is. Rumor has it the Coalition Council is talking about opening an XSecPen 2. The whole place would be an HT unit. Until then, top-shelf desperadoes have got to wait in line to visit our house. Although no con is eager to hear they’re coming here.”
“Hmm…?” Ishnik sounded like she was blowing bubbles underwater.
Shark screwed up his face. He didn’t like her funny noises. “What’s your problem?”
Ishnik shrugged. “It’s curious, that’s all. Conditions here are strict, but I’ve visited far worse prisons. The accommodations are clean; the systems appear orderly. I’ve witnessed no evidence of rampant abuse on the part of staff…”
Witness… evidence… abuse… Shark didn’t like the words coming out of her mouth. Despite her glowing review of XSecPen, his worries about her role here only increased.
He said, “It’s not the facility that gives this place its bad reputation. It’s the company the inmates keep. Only badasses end up at XSecPen HT. Once they arrive, the cons find that out quickly. They all want to bust out. Most of them have busted out of other prisons. So, they get frustrated realizing there’s no way out of here. Oh, they’ll settle for butchering a guard now and then. Only we play hard to get. Their consolation prize is slaying each other. Shit happens.”
“Interesting.” Ishnik gave him an enigmatic look. He found her tone smug. “Surely not everyone here is a cutthroat. This next prisoner, for example. He doesn’t seem threatening.”
Shark stopped the cart and hooted. Leaning forward, he banged the side of the trolley like a steel drum. “You know who that is, don’t you?” he asked, smirking. “This non-threat?”
Bristling, Ishnik shook her head. “I don’t recognize him,” she admitted. “Is he famous?”
Shark had to admit that the man inside the cell seemed ordinary. Average height and weight. About forty years old. He had a buzzcut and a widow’s peak, a trimmed blond goatee. For the moment he was lying back in his bunk with his arms folded under his head, whistling. Stuck to the ceiling above his bunk was a poster-sized map of Terran space.
“Legendary,” Shark said. “That is Nero Lupaster IV.”
Ishnik gasped. A rush of bubbles and static erupted from her mic. “This is the Butcher of the Quadrants? I thought he was dead.” She whispered, though the cell’s audio was switched off.
Shark shook his head.
“You’re thinking of Nero III. This is his only son, Nero Number Four. Nero Four is the person responsible for his father’s untimely demise. His father was a cyborg, and our little Nero planted a bomb in his fake leg. Blew up his own daddy. Four is, or was, the richest man alive, ever, like in the history of the cosmos. An octillionaire who ran the Arms Guild and built his own private army, he had an appetite for conquest. Treasure does him no good now. It’s sad.”
The Fushnallan stiffened and puffed out her chest. “I know about this man, Nero IV. Assassinations. Terrorist bombings. His mercenaries’ guerrilla attacks caused massive casualties among civilians and military personnel. A bloodthirsty killer. A third of the Galactic Defense Forces died at the hands of his army.” Ishnik’s voice was icy, as if her breather were freezing.
