Hardcore - 03 Read online

  "I'm bunking here!" Franco landed on the bed, and bounced a few times. A spring popped. Franco beamed. "It's all right this, ain't it Keenan? I mean, getting ferried to our next mission on a damn pleasure cruiser!" His eyes gleamed, and he licked his lips.

  "I wouldn't pay to stay here," said Keenan, dropping his own pack to his bed and eyeing Franco warily. "It's a little bit too... tacky for my liking."

  "Tacky? Tacky! Keenan, your middle name should be Moaning-Old-Goat."

  "You're the guy with a magpie eye for every plastic glitter bauble you can get your paws on. Now listen, we've got forty-eight hours until our DropShip leaves for Sick World. In that time we have to undergo medicals, get kitted out, check vehicles and weapons, and have upgrade implants. I don't want you heading out on the piss."

  "Moi? Piss?" Franco spread his hands. "Why would you possibly think I might do that?"

  "I know you, dickhead. So, no women, no beer, you understand? I need you switched on when we hit the ground."

  "Hey," said Franco, "have you ever known a mere ten pints of Guinness stop me performing?" He scratched his ginger goatee beard, and frowned. "Or even twenty, for that matter? I am a veritable party animal, Keenan. You have to let me out to play."

  "No."

  "Aww, go on Keenan, don't be such a stick in a bucket of turd."

  Keenan pulled free a battered Techrim 11mm pistol, and weighed it thoughtfully. "I'm not a... a stick in a bucket of turd, idiot." His words were tight. Controlled. But his eyes shone. "I'm just helping you to help yourself."

  Franco slumped to his bed, and kicked his sandals forlornly. "Fine words coming from a damned Jataxa alcoholic."

  "I don't drink anymore," said Keenan. "Not after Biohell. Not after the GreenSource Mainframe." He shivered, just a little, and remembered the cold clarity of alien thoughts flowing through his veins, acidic, cold, like hydrogen through an engine.

  "Well, I believe I deserve a drink. I've, um, had some recent bad news. Needs a bit of cheering up, I do."

  "You do? Why?"

  Franco twisted uncomfortably. "Weeeeeelll, do you remember how I got married to my sweet Melanie? My liddle chipmunk? My little pocket of furry honey delight?"

  "You mean your eight-foot tall twisted deviated fiancée? Yeah, I remember it all too clear. You're a fucking braver man than me, Franco." Keenan shivered.

  During the horrific events which had overtaken The City, an entire planet dedicated to pleasure and hedonism, and whereby anybody planet-side who'd taken a vanity biomod human or alien upgrade transmogrified into mutated, zombie-like creatures, Franco's new-found true-love, a tax-inspector by the name of Melanie, had changed quite horrifically into an eight-foot tall quivering mottled genetic super-soldier. Despite their best efforts to find Mel medical help, and get her changed back to a form considered more human, they had been unsuccessful. Apparently, NanoTek, the organic engineering butchers who created Mel's unfortunate biological modification, had made this particular model a one way process. Franco, however, being a man of his word, a soldier of iron principles, and with a constitution greater than any hardcore barroom brawler, had gone through with his ultimate promise. That of marriage to what was, effectively, a zombie.

  It had been an interesting ceremony.

  And an interesting wedding night.

  "Well," Franco puffed out his chest, watching Keenan unpacking his kit, "I'll come right out and say it. We've had a bit of a lovers' tiff. There." He looked about in a shifty manner.

  Keenan stopped, holding a pair of chemical-socks. He stared at Franco. "You had a lovers' tiff with an eight-foot mutation?"

  "Aye."

  "Did she bite off your head?"

  "Very funny. No. It would appear we had very differing standards about how to conduct marital life."

  "Meaning?"

  Franco shook his head. "It was disgusting!"

  "You mean her jellied vagina? The pus which continually leaked from her nipples? Or maybe the way her distended jaw continually drooled what could only be described as vomitus?"

  "No, no, no, none of that." He waved his hand. "The damn woman expected me to do my own ironing! She wanted me to wash the fucking dishes! And, and this was the worse thing mate, like, I just can't believe she even thought this was a rational request..."

  "Go on."

  "Mel expected me to shave off my beard."

  "The horror," grinned Keenan, unloading several Techrim mags from his pack which clacked as he tossed them on the bed. "I expect she wanted you to pluck your nostrils, too. You never were one for a neatly-trimmed nasal bush."

  Franco stared at the floor, looking sheepish. "Yeah, well, she filed for a divorce."

  "What?"

  Franco looked at Keenan. There was a hint of pain nestling deep in Franco's blue orbs. He sniffed. "Yeah. She filed for a divorce. I signed the paperwork yesterday. I'm officially a free agent."

  Keenan scratched his head, and pointed at Franco. "So, let me get this straight, you're telling me you were divorced by an eight-foot mottled dribbling pus-drooling genetic mutation?"

  "That's one way of putting it," mumbled Franco. He looked up. And brightened. "But look at it this way! At least I'm the Party Boy again! I like women! I like all kinds of women! But most of all, I like women I don't know very well!"

  "You've not been listening, Franco."

  "Eh?"

  "No beer. No women. We have a briefing in..." he checked his implanted plutonium watch. "Five minutes. Hangar 57. So sort out your shit, change your sandals, grab your PAD and follow me." Grumbling, Franco followed Keenan from the quarters and they headed for the mission barracks.

  Hangar 57 was packed with perhaps three thousand operatives, ranging from normal reg. soldiers up to Combat-K special forces. There was a dour, serious mood in the air as Keenan and Franco filtered through the ranks of men and women, some seated and many standing in groups, huddled and talking softly. Franco spotted Pippa, waved, and headed off before Keenan could stop him. Cursing, Keenan followed, and watched Franco slump down next to the lithe, athletic woman with bobbed brown hair and cold, grey eyes. She smiled up at Keenan, and he kicked Franco on the ankle as he squeezed past and took the only available seat - beside the woman he'd once swore he would kill.

  "Ouch!" Franco rubbed his ankle. "Well, look at this! The original and the best Combat-K squad, back together again!"

  "You make us sound like a breakfast cereal," said Pippa, running a hand through her hair. She turned to Keenan, and was about to speak when General Steinhauer floated in on his HoverChair and bobbed before the podium. A hush fell across the gathered soldiers.

  "Welcome, all," began Steinhauer, face lined with pain from his recent dual amputation. Despite powerful drugs, the doctors could never quite remove the agony which burned him - both physically and mentally. "You are aware you have been hand-picked as those at the top of your particular fields. Recent events have shown we have underestimated the junks, and by association, Leviathan. The junks are three steps ahead of us, both in terms of numbers, weaponry, tactics, and technology. Two days ago, they destroyed General Kotinevitch's WarFleet."

  Steinhauer paused, allowing that to sink in. Several gasps could be heard through the ranks.

  Steinhauer continued. "Not only was the WarFleet crushed and decimated. It was done so with consummate ease. Arrogance. A disregard for the Quad-Galaxy's might, so long unchallenged after the brutality of the Helix War. Now, as you know, our mission here is one of intelligence gathering. The junks originated somewhere relatively local - and we need clues as to their origins, the source of their technology and, most importantly, how we can take the war to them. You have all been assigned to small squads, carefully picked by my Under-Generals in order to complement one another's specific talents. In a few moments, data will be transcribed to PADs and call-signs initiated. I want you to team up with your new squad mates, and from thence specific instructions will be streamed, and myself and Under-Generals will circulate in order to answer
specific questions. Understood?"

  "YES SIR!" thundered Hanger 57.

  "One last thing, soldiers of the Quad-Gal. If we'd spoken two days ago, well, I had a different speech planned. The recent annihilation of Kotinevitch's WarFleet has put a new spin on events. The junks are accelerating their war effort, my friends. We need something, something special, in order to stop them. Only you can do this. Dismissed!"

  Keenan's PAD buzzed, and he glanced down, then across to Franco. "Well done, Big Man, you've been promoted."

  "Eh?" Franco was busy watching the arse of a lithe but powerful woman with long, jagged-cut red hair, who had just risen from her seat.

  "It says here that our Combat-K gang are going to Sick World, but not alone. We're all Squad Captains. Franco, Pippa, you'll take a team of three down to the surface of Sick World; from there we'll split, carry out specific intelligence gathering and search several flagged archaeological sites, then reconvene after five days to plan the next step. If we think we have intel on the junks, we report and delve deeper. If not, we skip planet and head for the next designated target on the list."

  "I'm a Squad Captain!" beamed Franco. He stood, and puffed out his chest. "Wow! That means, yeah, that means I have a team! We can do team building! Appraisals! I can give advice! Hell and damnation, I hope they're all pretty."

  "Hello? Captain Haggis?"

  Franco whirled, giving a full-teeth grin. The athletic woman with jagged red hair was smiling down at him, head tilted as she looked at her new boss and realised his eyes had strayed disconcertingly towards her cleavage.

  "Hello there!" Franco saluted, a sloppy salute which had seen him, during his military career, clean an inordinate number of industrial bean-bins. He eyed the woman up and down with a lustful leer, noting the two swords sheathed, criss-cross, on her back. "Well well well, what have we got here, pretty one?"

  Keenan choked. Pippa shook her head, sighing a sigh which said, Jesus, Franco, some things will never change.

  The red-haired woman stared at him. Hard. "My name is Fizzy. And you can wipe that filthy look off your face for a start. It's going to be a long mission and the last thing me and the girls need is some leering pervert as a Squad Captain."

  "The girls?" swooned Franco.

  Fizzy nodded, to where two more tall, athletic women were weaving their way through the bustling throng of military activity. She introduced them. "This is Shazza." Shazza was tall, voluptuous, brunette. "And Candy." Candy was tall, voluptuous and blonde. All three women eyed Franco with worrying distaste.

  Franco, eyes popping from his skull, looked up towards the roof of the Pleasure Cruiser. He licked red, gleaming lips. Grinned. And said, "Yes. There is a god of the Quad-Galaxy! Girls? Follow me, and allow me to begin your education."

  Franco moved away, hips swaying, and the three female squaddies followed uncertainly. Pippa fell against Keenan, laughing, and Keenan could not keep the grin from his battered face.

  "He's got so much to learn if he thinks he has a chance in Seven Hells of getting near one of those femme fatales," said Pippa.

  "Yeah, but the way he sees it, he has the Jonny Allen Syndrome. Try it with every fish, and sooner or later, one bites the bait." Allen had been an old Combat-K squaddie renowned for his amorous attentions, to robots as well as women. He used to have his bedpost notched for each sexual encounter. When asked about alien conquests, he'd tap his nose conspiratorially and lick gleaming lips and say, "But that's my little secret."

  "Wonder where my squad is?" mused Pippa, looking about.

  "Mine's here," said Keenan, and gave an internal groan. Who picked this ragtag bunch of mercenary detonation-heads? he thought, sourly, whilst forcing a smile to his face and shaking the hands of the three unkempt individuals who shuffled before him.

  The first man was small, wiry, his army shirt cut off at the shoulders showing iron muscles like cord around poles. His arms were heavily tattooed. In fact, his chest, neck, cheeks, arms, hands and knuckles were all heavily tattooed. If there was bare flesh, the man had tattooed it. He shook Keenan's hand with the sort of gold-toothed grin that had Keenan checking his wallet.

  "Ed," he said, voice a low growl. "I've heard a lot about you, Keenan. We should work well together. You're a man who gets the job done."

  Keenan nodded, lips tight, teeth clenched. "I hope so."

  The second man was, on first impressions, normal. Normal height, normal build, no discerning features. His brown hair was of average length, his features almost mild in their façade. It was his eyes that gave him away. One was orange, the other violet. And they told of a man not entirely there in the mentalist department. Keenan should know: heTd spent enough hours around Franco Haggis.

  "Maximux," he said, smiling with crooked teeth. "This should be a fun gig down on the Sick World. A sick world for a sick mind, I always say."

  "Yeah, fun if you're a psycho," said Keenan, voice low, aware that Maximux was not breaking his handshake.

  The grin widened. "I try my best."

  And the third was quite obviously the leader. Last to introduce himself. Leading from the back - that way, you got better odds. And taking his time to weigh Keenan up, time to observe Keenan's strengths and weaknesses, even as Keenan returned the favour. He was tall, powerfully built, had long, curly black hair, and an eye-patch. Keenan bit off the urge to crack jokes about pirates and parrots. This wasn't the sort of man you made jokes with.

  "Nice to meet you, Keenan."

  "And you would be?"

  "Snake."

  "I've heard of you."

  "Only bad things, I hope?"

  Keenan smiled easily. "Yeah, mate. Only bad things."

  Pippa slapped Keenan on the back, drawing the attention of the three men. She grinned, eyes locked to Keenan's. "Well fellas, I'll leave you to play cricket. Don't play rough now!" She ambled away, laughing to herself. She'd seen the light of anger and annoyance in Keenan's eyes. Here was a squad you could do without, the sort of group you had to watch, and watch closely lest they prize the gold teeth from your jaws.

  Pippa moved to the rendezvous on her PAD. And stared at Mel. "You've got to be joking. Shit. It's Franco's missus!"

  Franco's ex-wife stood a little over eight feet tall. She was slim and wiry, skin a dark mottled brown, spotted, corrugated, and slick with grease. Her body was a mockery of a human female body, with long, quivering, dangling breasts reaching almost to the monster's waist, and with nipples like plums oozing grey pus. She had a long curved neck, and a small head which shone, round and hairless. Her lower jaw staggered out from a nightmare face in a staccato jump, the nose two pin-pricks, the ears flaps against pus-oozing orifices. Melanie's neck crackled with plates of armour as she moved her head, and her legs were thick, short, powerful. She growled at Pippa, who blinked.

  "Who let you in?"

  "Einhauer. Ed I id erling ervice."

  "And now you're on our team?" Pippa considered this. She had to concede, Melanie was a tough cookie, and was a damn sight more powerful and efficient than ninety-nine percent of the Quad-Gal military she'd met on ops. Pippa reached out, took Mel's heavy claw, and shook the distended zombie appendage. "Glad to have you onboard."

  "Elcome."

  The next to arrive was a huge woman, as wide as she was squat, her jowls wobbling as she walked with her bulk compressed in the largest XXXXXXXL size uniform the QGM could administer. Her hair was tied back in a tight black bun, her face was oval, friendly, and yet her eyes and jaw were strong. Her breasts were huge, like badly-inflated comedy balloons, and her legs like shapeless, hairy tree-trunks.

  "Olga. Nice to see you again," said Pippa, weakly. She glanced across to Keenan, who was listening to his squad speak but with a curious, detached look on his face. They weren't the kind of men to turn your back on.

  Whereas she... she seemed to have acquired the Combat-K Reject Squad. All she needed now was a Slab Mud Wrestler, or perhaps a sadistic, humourless SIM. In the end, it was worse even than that.<
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  He was squat and powerful, broad-shouldered, with a shaved head and small, black, shark-eyes. His face was a bad example of Frankenstein-stitching from an event involving an industrial bone-stapler and an irate ginger squaddie one ace short of a pack. Once a spook for Combat K, and leader of a rebel outfit on The City during "The Zombie Troubles", the soldier was a washed-up burned-out hopeless senile delinquent.

  "Betezh." Pippa smiled a tight smile. "Nice."

  Betezh beamed. It was the sort of smile a shark gave before chewing off your legs. "Hiya Pippa! Isn't this incredible? I can't believe I've been assigned to your squad! I think somebody important has been pulling a few strings."

  Pippa glanced over to Franco, in animated conversation with his bored looking team, and he grinned at her, and she knew. Money had changed hands. Franco did have that sort of sense of humour. Franco beamed, and gave her a dual thumbs up. Pippa gave him the finger.

  "Yeah, it looks that way," agreed Pippa, eyeing Mel, Olga and Betezh with one horrific sweep of her gaze. Still, she thought. It could have been worse. She could have been landed with Keenan's dodgy back-stabbing mercenary team. At least these deviants she could trust. At least she'd seen them in operation; and that way, to some extent, knew what they were capable of.

  "Ou OK?" asked Mel, looming over Pippa and making the combat woman jump.

  "Yeah, Mel. I'm fine. Thank fuck we're not dropping into a fast-roll combat situation, that's all I can say."

  Keenan and Franco stopped outside their quarters. Franco grinned at Keenan, who tilted his head, watching his little ginger friend.

  "This is a great gig, ain't it Keenan?" beamed Franco.

  "What do you mean?"

  "What a doss! A skive! A fucking party, bro! Five days on a planet already scanned by DropBots. No enemies. No alien life forms. No trouble. Just you, me, Pippa, and a horde of sexy vixen team members. Did you see their legs, Keenan? Did you? And their breasts, mate? I tell you, I'd die a happy man if I could get my face between a few of those plump sweet pairs of peaches."