Death system, p.26
Death System, page 26
part #3 of Zombicide Invader Series
They must’ve left behind quite a haul of precious material. His light wandered over a small gray mountain of what he presumed to be raw xenium piled at the back of the crypt, its slopes dripping in glistening streaks of mold that sparkled under his light. This dull, wrinkly, lumpy heap was what the fuss was all about? This was xenium? If someone had told him he was looking at the dregs of mining, the effluvium, he would’ve believed them. Worse than its lusterless, unimpressive appearance, the xenium had things growing on it. Disgusting, awful things he couldn’t put a name to – long, greasy, black tufts of what looked almost like fur, and little hornlike protrusions of various sizes poked up from the motherlode. Between that and the pools of mold, he’d had enough. No, thank you, I’ll stick to piracy. Some jobs are too dirty…
He laughed out loud. “What a mess.”
Krait was turning to leave when the pile sat up and looked at him. An array of eyes like red blisters on a rotten gray melon. At first, he thought, jewels, then giant spider. It was neither.
•••
A later report from the Coalition investigators concluded that Hans Krait had the very bad misfortune of walking smack dab into the lair of a Juggernaut Abomination, an exceedingly rare variety of Xeno of which little is known and even less can be proven. No Juggernaut Abomination has ever been visually documented. In the case of Krait’s encounter, a short audio snippet was later discovered when the remnants of his armor were retrieved by a Galactic Forces Recon unit who entered the xenium vault on PK-L7. It seemed that acting in a panic, Krait accidentally switched on his suit’s voice recorder. The following is a transcript of that recording:
Krait: Oh god no.
[A squelching sound. Thought possibly to be the JA rising from its resting place.]
Krait: I mean you no harm. Sorry to disturb your… slumber… I’ll go now.
[A roar. Initially suspected to be an explosion, later analysis suggests it might be the JA vocalizing toward the subject {H.K.}. Following the vocal outburst, a great gushing of liquid.]
Krait: (in a muffled voice) PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASENODON’TPLEASE…
Krait’s voice cuts off at this point after a significant amount of shrieking, which may be A) the subject screaming, B) his armor being crushed, or C) the JA emitting a high-pitched cry [of delight???]. Interpretation by GF audio experts suggests it may be a combination of all three.
Chapter Forty-Two
Prelude to an Escape Plan
Nero had managed to pull their fat out of the fryer yet again. That’s what he was claiming when they emerged from the Xeno tunnels inside the station’s cluttered mess hall. Lemora wasn’t going to argue. She’d thought they were doomed as soon as the Xenos charged, but Nero directed them to a pothole in the runway that looked as if it might fit no more than a single person. Once they sank to the bottom of the hole, there was a tunnel made by the Xenos for the Xenos, and therefore sizable enough to accommodate them. They didn’t even need to hunch over, which made running easier. Above them the zombies stampeded, shaking the soil down like dirt rain from a seismic event. Lemora was sure a few of the Xenos would chase after them, and she’d die underground like a rat in the mouth of a scaly reptile. That didn’t happen.
Perhaps it was a primitive herd mentality that saved them. The Xenos, who not long ago were being remotely controlled by the Cybernetics Guild’s programming, latched onto the mob’s collective will and followed whatever the majority decided to do. And the majority wanted to storm the station, specifically the comms hub module. That was where they were headed when Nero, Lemora, and Kix dived into the cavity to save their skins.
“A-ha,” Nero said. “We’re in the kitchen, and I, for one, am starving. Who’s hungry?”
Lemora didn’t bother to tell him that if there was any food in the cupboards, it wouldn’t be edible. She knew he was only joking. He did it to cope with difficulties. And if Shawna and the others had perished, the difficulties were only beginning. None of them knew how to fly. Whatever equipment Krait had restored in the comms hub would never survive a second assault. And Krait, he was probably dead, too. So, no way to call out for help to his lieutenants in the Arms Guild. And none of them could work a wormhole without Dr Kix. Kix sat slumped in a chair, resting his head on a long institutional dining table, like the ones they had at XSecPen, and he was sobbing.
“Buck up. Things could be worse,” Nero said, taking hold of his arm.
But the Caridian remained inconsolable.
Lemora pulled up a chair and joined him. Nero wandered away, to peer out of a smudgy porthole in the middle of the mess hall door. He slid up to it slowly, flicking his eyes into the dark, cluttered hallway on the other side.
“How’s it looking?” Lemora asked.
“Good. No signs of activity, Xeno or otherwise. Furniture’s got us blocked in. But I was hoping to rest a spell and catch our breath. The chow hall is as good a place as any to do that.”
Lemora glanced around at the dust-filled salad bar, the soda dispensers, and rusty ice cream machines. The opposite side of the room catered to non-Xeno aliens. There was a Thassian scorching stone and various Fushnallan live tanks, containing the remnants of artificial coral reefs, sea-farmed plants, and acidic chemical soups that were popular with several species of aliens. Lemora tried to imagine the miners sitting at these tables, eating and talking, kidding one another the way hard laborers always do – she pictured them on the night before the first Xeno attack, when the worst thing they thought might happen to them was a cave-in, being trapped in a mine, as the headlamp batteries on their suits dimmed and the oxygen sputtered.
What they didn’t know was how bad it was going to get, how hell was coming up from underground to pay them a visit. Their lives would be forever changed. Most of them wouldn’t live through the next day. She could almost hear the knocks of the first infected breaking in–
“What is that?” Nero said.
Exhausted, she tried to clear away the cobwebs in her head. “What’s what?”
“That knocking.” He stepped away from the porthole, ears cocked, turning his head.
Lemora listened. Had it been more than the sound of her daydreams? Yes! “I hear it, too.”
“Yeah, but where’s it coming from?”
The Caridian lifted his head. He pointed to the air vent at the end of the room. “There.”
The three of them ran to the vent. It followed along the ceiling in the center of the module until it turned ninety degrees over the salad bar. Dust sifted through the vent screen like beige snow.
“Get me out of here,” a voice said.
Lemora saw eyes peering through the vent – Shawna’s eyes. The pilot banged at the screen. “Out, out… c’mon. My legs are cramped, and I feel like the walls are closing in on me.”
“Hold on,” Nero said. “The corner of the screen is bent. Let me pry it loose.” Lemora and Kix helped him drag a table up to the salad bar. Nero leaped on top of it. He picked at the screen with his gloved fingers, and the vent cover fell away, clattering on the floor. “Take my hand.”
Shawna jumped down. She swiveled on her butt and skidded into a waiting chair.
Nero had his head in the air vent. He switched his lamp on, looking both ways. Then he climbed down and sat at the table with the others. Shawna was staring at her boots, blank-faced.
“Where are the others?” he asked.
“Bak-Irp’s dead. Krait abandoned us. Too-ahka was scouting the vent ahead of me, but I lost the tracks in the darkness. I was crawling through here when I heard your voices. I thought I must be hallucinating. We watched the Xenos overrun your position. I thought you were dead.”
“Nothing can kill Nero,” Nero said. “I’m bulletproof and never lose. Well, I haven’t yet.”
“You’re insufferable,” Shawna said.
“Insufferably charming.”
“I should’ve stayed quiet and kept crawling.”
“It’s great to see you too, Highflyer. Now can we get out of here?”
They stared at him. Only Lemora knew for sure that he was serious. People died around Nero; they had all his life. What he did was he moved on. People betrayed him, too, like Krait, and he expected as much, in these cases he never forgot the transgression. Lemora valued Bak-Irp’s skills, and she was sad to hear he was out of the game. Even more than that, she worried about Krait still being alive. He could become another threat to them. Nero was catching a second wind, the thrill of victory rising in his blood; she could see it in his cheeks, a pink blush. The good news was that Shawna was with them again. Lemora trusted her to do her job well.
“You still want to try for the Andronicus?” Shawna asked Nero.
“Duh. Yeah, I do. The plan worked, y’all. Neera’s out of the picture. The Xenos aren’t even lurking by the ships, I’ll wager. They’re here, looking for us. We’re going back out there.”
“The tunnels?” Lemora said, knowing already what his intentions were.
“You bet,” he said. “That’ll deposit us a few meters from the Deathcan. Then it’s boom and zoom. Everything’s golden. Kix here will walk us through the wormhole business. Heck, we get back to the Arms Guild, old Kixy will vouch for me and help get the Cybernetics weirdos to reopen talks about the Xeno master plan my sister was cooking up. It’s a damn good plan. I only wish I’d thought of it. But I’m driving the bus now, and I see no reason to throw out a perfectly fine scheme to take over Terran space and wipe out those Coalition bastards once and for all. It’s showtime, folks.” Nero was wired. She’d seen him like this before. Like a gambler who thought his luck had turned and he was untouchable, every throw of the dice would be a winner. Golden.
Lemora noticed Shawna had a grenade in her hands. She was flicking at the pin.
“Where’d you get that?” she asked her. The pilot was nothing if not resourceful.
“I kept a few from before.” Shawna hooked her thumb into the bandolier belt tied around her waist. Four mold bomb canisters dangled from the belt, minus the one she had in her hand.
“Whoa!” Nero said, looking at the bombs. “Were you going to use those in the air vent?” He pantomimed throwing the grenade and blowing himself up. “Kind of close quarters, no?”
“I had them in case they caught me. I don’t want to be eaten,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“None of us do, Highflyer,” he said, his mood turning serious suddenly.
Shawna gave the pin a final flick and clipped it back on her belt.
Lemora held out her hand, palm up. “You’d better give me those. I’m the demolitions expert.” Shawna had an independent streak in her, and Lemora knew she didn’t agree with Nero’s ambitions. There was no telling who’d she’d blow up if the situation deteriorated. The plain truth was that if there were explosives, Lemora wanted them in her possession. She was greedy like that. But she bore no animosity toward Shawna whatsoever, she admired her resilience.
“OK.” Shawna untied the belt, passed it to Lemora. Then to Nero she said, “Let’s fly.”
Nero high-fived her.
Chapter Forty-Three
Escape: Take Two
The tunnel was quiet, and Nero became aware of the sound of his boots scuffling along the carved-out floor, his own breathing, and the distant racket of the Xenos above, tearing apart what remained of the station. The quicker they got out of dodge the better. He was convinced his plan was solid, but you never knew what you didn’t know until it popped up and bit you in the ass. His headlamp beam glowed noticeably weaker, shrunken, burning low like a fire going out. He only had so much fuel left in his tank, literally and figuratively, and the others were the same. Everything had to work. Oxygen, ammo, life supports, and fuel on the Andronicus – there were a million things that might go wrong. But as the team leader he had to keep a smile on his face. Eyes on the prize. If doubts crept in, they’d turn corrosive, and people would quit. He never quit.
“Here we go,” he said, looking up at the spill of lemony light pouring into the pothole. “The Deathcan is about thirty meters to our right.” He pivoted around for a last look at the team, or what was left of them. Loyal Lemora, the brains behind his own brilliance. Shawna, the hotshot flyer. And Kix. The Caridian was a jumble of nerves, eyes darting, face twitching – Nero hoped the guy could hold it together, because he needed him with his head in the game, focused. He wished he had another gunner in his arsenal, Bak-Irp or one of the Silvas; he’d even have settled for Fuzzy, but you fight with the army you have, not the one you wished for. “We ready?”
He could count on the women to keep their shit together. The Caridian was a wildcard.
“I’m good,” Lemora said, smiling at him with a glint of adventure in her dark eyes.
Shawna simply nodded.
The Caridian… leaned against the side of the tunnel and shivered.
“Hey,” Nero said. “Hey, it’s a short jog out to the ship. We climb on. We fly away.”
Kix nodded, unconvinced, it appeared. Nero couldn’t blame him, really, because things were going to be more complicated than he’d stated, but the basics were essentially the same. Nero stepped aside to make room for Shawna, who they’d decided should go first, straight to the cockpit. He and Lemora would head down to the armory, get fresh weapons, re-up on ammo. They’d need them if it took a while before takeoff, if the Xenos noticed them and came a-calling.
Nero boosted Shawna up out of the pothole. She didn’t hesitate. He heard her boots running, the poc-poc-poc crunch heading off in the direction of the ship. Next came Lemora. He had to help the Caridian out, too. He had no confidence that if he left him to go last, the guy wouldn’t freeze and curl up in a ball like a dead bug. So, Nero was the last one out of the hole.
He looked right at the ship. Saw Shawna sprinting up the dune to the Tri-T’s door. That was the good news. The bad news was that a few Xenos had spotted them. Stragglers, he guessed, not in a hurry to rush the module complex like the others. Skinny, apathetic-looking suckers, they were literally lounging on the wing of the ship, sprawled there catching the rays, sunning themselves like lizards on rocks. When they picked up their heads, they were alert, instantly energized. He watched one kick another awake. A posse of them gathered there, about a dozen.
“Shit,” he said under his breath. He fired off a burst over their gray, bulbous heads. They were all what Lemora told him were called workers, or descendants of workers; they looked feral and mean. His shots caused them to stand up and step to the edge of the wing. They struck poses, screaming, throwing back their shoulders and tightening their muscles, veins bulging in the necks that he could see even at this distance. Dumbshits, he thought. If you’re trying to intimidate me, you picked the wrong guy. I’m Nero Lupaster IV, ruler of all I survey! Take that!
He rattled off another long burst of bullets. He hit one of the posers. The zombie tumbled over, somersaulting like a diver leaping off a cliff, but instead of landing with a splash in the sea, he plopped in the sand like a sky turd. “Hell yeah!” Nero pumped his fist.
The Caridian was running without using his arms, which he had wrapped around him, giving himself a hug.
“Pick up the pace, Kix.”
Nero passed him and gave the back of his helmet a whack. That got the guy going again.
The Xeno posse exited the wing and formed a circle around Lemora. She was taunting them, kicking dust, shooting at their feet, and mocking their roars. When they moved in on her, she juked into a space between two of them, causing them to stumble and fall. Laughing, she ran for the tail section of the ship. Maddened, they flung themselves at her in fast pursuit.
She’s luring them away.
If there was a better number two leader in Terran space, Nero wanted to know who it was. He’d put Lemora up against the best of them. When they got back to Guild headquarters, he was going to give her a big, fat bonus, and he was putting her in charge of the Xeno invasion. Forget xenium. The most valuable commodity on the market was loyalty. He’d pay top dollar.
Nero dashed up the dune, surprised to find Kix right behind him. Maybe it was the sight of the Xenos that had slowed the wormhole-ologist down. Nero flung the door open and rushed the Caridian inside.
“Go left. Into the cockpit. Help Shawna. Do whatever she tells you to do.”
Kix disappeared into the shadows.
“Time’s up, Lem. This bus is leaving,” he said into his suit mic.
He stood in the entrance, machine gun resting on his hip, waiting to welcome her aboard.
“Give me a sec.” Her reply crackled with static. He couldn’t see where she’d gone.
Where were the Xenos?
She must’ve taken the skinny lizards on a run around the outside of the ship. He leaned out of the doorway looking toward the nosecone. Nothing.
“Lem, where are you?” The tiniest tickle of concern brushed his brain.
She didn’t respond. He turned up the volume on his speaker, listening for her voice. Then he saw her looping around the tail section. Doubling them back, that’s smart. Why was she running so slowly? Was she that gassed?
“We’re not so young anymore, Lem. Not like the old days.”
But she wasn’t talking. As she got closer, he saw she was limping, dragging one leg through the dust, her ankle turned to the side. Bad wheel, he thought. That’s gonna swell up. But she was going to make it. They always made it – Nero and Lem, a pair of legendary survivors.
But she wasn’t looking so good. Slow, she looked slow. And pain etched her face.
Nero started out down the dune to go get her. He’d haul her up here one way or another.
“No!” she shouted. Both of her arms shot up in the air, signaling him. “It’s over, darling.”
Her words froze him. Over? What’s she talking about?
Then Xenos rounded the tail, and they didn’t bother to run. They stalked her. Flicking their tongues and striding confidently through the dust. Within seconds they were on top of her.
