Mech

Fourteen

Mudface pulled the limo over to the side of a dark street that led down into a cluster of quiet estates and summer homes. They were high up in the hills surrounding New Grunstein now, on the edge of the Polar Range itself.

“What about the kid?” asked Mudface, waving his shotgun in Bili’s face.

“We’re almost there. We’ll kill’im as soon as we get to the house,” said Daddy, grunting as he heaved his bulk out of the limo and slammed the door shut. He went to relieve himself on a road sign.

“You can’t kill a little boy,” Sarah pleaded.

Mudface shrugged disinterestedly.

Bili said nothing. He gazed out the window into the forests and seemed absorbed.

“You can’t, Mudface,” hissed Sarah urgently. “I’ll make it worth your while if you just let him go. What can he do?”

“Little ‘uns grow up, missy. Maybe one day he’ll come lookin’ for poor Mudface when he’s just a toothless old man.”

Sarah reached out and touched his grimy skin. She forced herself to caress him. “Please.”

Mudface tracked her carefully with the barrel of his hand-cannon. Never did she have a moment to make a move on him. With his other hand he picked at a bit of filth on his face. “I’m gonna get what I want, anyways.”

Sarah felt sick. “Have you ever had a willing woman?”

Mudface frowned, an expression of concentration formed on his face. “I can’t say. Maybe one or two of the swampy harlots, I guess you could say they was willing enough.”

“Believe me, I can do special things for a man to please him.” First glancing at Bili to see if he was still staring out the window-he was-she gave him another caress and pressed soft lips against his fingers. She tried to avoid the one he used most commonly for picking his face.

He fidgeted indecisively. “Oh, all right,” he said finally, opening the car door and giving Bili a shove. “Off with you.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” said Bili seriously. He tried to catch his mother’s eyes. “Not yet.”

“Go on now. Go,” his mother insisted, pushing him away.

Bili turned and ran into the night, hot tears burning his cheeks. Mudface fired a few wild shots into the woods after him to convince Daddy, then turned back to Sarah. “You know I’ve got a soft spot, don’t you missy? You’re gonna have to pay for this favor, don’t you know.”

Sarah said nothing.

Daddy came back to the limo, fumbling with his fly and cussing at Mudface.

She searched the fringe of dark trees for some sign of her son, she thought she saw a dark shape flittering through the trees, but she couldn’t be sure.

The drive through the forest to the secluded vacation house Mudface and Daddy kept there seemed to take forever, although it only lasted a few minutes. The entire time, Mudface busied himself with Sarah, fondling and groping beneath her blouse. He grinned silently while he did this, and seemed to enjoy sneaking a feel in the backseat while Daddy drove the car. Sarah wondered briefly whether he had ever had a girlfriend to do such things with. She doubted it.

At times, as the limo wound its way up into the mountains, they came upon open vistas beneath which all of Grunstein was visible. As they passed one of them, they could see the flashes and hear the distant rattling of gunfire coming from the spaceport. Daddy slowed the limo and rolled down the windows to watch.

“That’s a squadron of Stormbringers up there,” he said, rubbing his stubbly chin. “I don’t like this at all.”

“So what if the dirt-huggers are getting a new Governor? Let them fight it out,” said Mudface.

Sarah could tell he was anxious to get the car moving again so he could continue his fantasies and his gropings. His hand worked on the inside of her thigh like a man kneading bread.

“Nope, don’t like it at all,” repeated Daddy. He cleaned a long triangular fingernail with his teeth. “Big changes in who’s who won’t help our business. I’ve paid a lot of money for Zimmerman’s rubberstamp. What if this new Droad guy out from the Nexus is uncontrollable?”

Mudface rolled his eyes and bared his teeth in impatience. Sarah braced herself as Daddy rolled the window up on the distant battleground and drove onward. Mudface’s ministrations began again immediately and in earnest. He leaned close to kiss her and she forced herself to respond. It was still possible for them to go back and try to find Bili. She had to give him as much time as possible to get away.

The smell of the man, up close and personal, was enough to gag her. His skin had a rancid, cheesy odor to it that was overlaid with the sharp pungency of unwashed armpits. His breath was indescribably powerful.

Breathing through her mouth, Sarah endured this silently, as he seemed to like it that way. She wondered if Daddy would have cared even if she had been screaming her head off.

Mudface started on her knees next, and worked his way up slowly, squeezing hard enough to bruise her. Sarah steeled herself and stared out the windows into the forest.

“What’s that?” she gasped. A dark shape glided across the road ahead. For a moment the headlights caught an image of a stingray-like creature with mottled brown skin. The creature vanished into the forest.

“Shut up!” barked Daddy. “Just some kinda bird.”

Sarah fell silent again, but inside her a numbing block of icy fear began to form. She knew the creatures of Garm well, and she had seen too many odd monsters lately to count this one as normal. What was happening? It seemed as if she were caught up in several nightmares at once.

Shortly after that they pulled into a driveway that curved downward at a sharp angle. After several switchbacks they reached the house, and the floodlights came on, sensing their approach. A subsection of the house slid away and the limo glided inside.

An elevator took them from the garage up to the main floor. Daddy sent Mudface to the security center to check all the systems out. The moment he was gone, Daddy advanced on her, grabbing up a handful of her hair and placing the barrel of his hand-cannon to her temple.

“Come on, girly,” he rumbled in her ear. “Quiet now.”

He dragged her out to the indoor pool area and shut the door behind them. The walls and the domed roof reflected wavery lines of light from the pool. Sarah’s breathing became short and desperate. Her heart pounded in her chest.

“Sorry, but I just don’t think we have time to do this little bit of business properly,” said Daddy. With that, he unceremoniously gripped her throat in both hands and began squeezing. She struggled, kicking his blubbery body and scratching at his face. He cursed a bit, but was otherwise unaffected. He forced her down on her back and slid her head toward the edge of the pool.

The frenzied sounds of splashing echoed around the indoor pool. Daddy held Sarah’s head under the water, trying not to let her scratch his face and hands. The barrel of his hand-cannon, shoved into his waistband, gleamed in the wavering pool lights. After a time the splashing stopped.

“What are you doing?” demanded Mudface, he returned from the security center and rushed up to his side. “You wasted her.”

“Yeah, so?”

“You said we were going to have fun with her first,” complained Mudface. “You promised.”

“We haven’t got time for that tonight, boy. Strange things are happening around the colony. Lots of reported riots and disappearances. I think that new Nexus Governor is making a play to start a civil war down here and I don’t want to hang around for it.”

“I had big plans,” said Mudface, looking at Sarah’s blue cheeks longingly.

Daddy snorted. “Just do it anyway.”

“It’s not the same with a dead woman. It isn’t any fun unless she knows you’re doing it,” said Mudface.

Daddy sighed and rolled his eyes. He looked at the ceiling of his luxurious summer home. He rarely came down from Gopus these days to visit-except to do a little business like tonight. Publicly he held that he couldn’t stand the crowds of Garm. In truth he didn’t like the gravity, which made his vast bulk twice as hard to move around.

“Okay, boy, I know I promised and I don’t like to go back on promises. Look, we both know CPR. Let’s give it a try,” suggested Daddy, moved to a rare attempt at pleasing his son. He grabbed Sarah’s arms and jerked her out of the pool. Chlorine-smelling water dribbled from her broken fingernails.

“What are you talking about? She’s dead.”

“We’ve got one of those reviver kits in the poolhouse. Go get it.”

Smiling hopefully like a kid at Christmas, Mudface left at a trot and soon returned with a shrink-wrapped package. He pulled off the wrapper and popped the safety-seal cap. Beneath the cap were two copper prongs and a long steel needle. Daddy grabbed them from him saying, “Get back.”

Mudface shuffled backward and Daddy jabbed the instrument into Sarah’s chest. There was a jolt of electricity and the body lurched in a grotesque parody of life. The bulb at the end of the needle pumped automatically.

“Here, you push on her chest and I’ll work her mouth.”

The two performed CPR for nearly a minute before Sarah coughed and vomited. Her chest heaved and her eyes rolled loosely in her head, but she was breathing again.

“It worked,” marveled Daddy.

“Damn, now she’s got barf in her hair,” complained Mudface. He wiped his hands on his shirttails disgustedly.

“After all that trouble you still don’t want her?” demanded Daddy incredulously. He backhanded his son, knocking Mudface’s shapeless felt hat off his head. “It was a sorry day when your mother whelped you, boy! Now you get to work, here. No backtalk.” He jabbed a thick finger at Sarah’s gasping form.

“I can’t, Daddy,” said Mudface, glowering. “I can’t just do that.”

“It’ll be a long time before you see me workin’ so hard for you again, boy,” rumbled Daddy. He heaved himself up off his knees with a grunt. At their feet Sarah shivered, barely conscious. Her toes and lips were blue with cold.

“Now we gotta kill her all over again,” complained Daddy. He considered strangling her again, but didn’t want to get down on his knees again. “Ah, to hell with it,” he said, pulling his hand-cannon from his waistband. “Nobody will care about one more blasted smuggler with a civil war going on.”

“What was that?” asked Mudface, turning. Both men had their weapons out. Another clattering sound came from the poolhouse, near the back gate.

“You go and see, I’m gonna finish matters with this bitch,” said Daddy, prodding Sarah with his boot. “Again,” he added sarcastically. He raised his hand-cannon and sighted on her breasts.

Mudface frowned, opened his mouth to complain, but the words never came out. At that moment the poolhouse door burst open. Into the open ran Bili, followed by a grotesque caterpillar-like monster. The shrade humped after him eagerly, making ready to spring onto the boy’s back. It halted and reared up when it saw the others. It stared at them, quivering.

Bili dashed past them, his breath coming in ragged sobs. Without ceremony he flung himself into the pool. Mudface and Daddy grunted in disgust at the shrade and lifted their weapons. Mudface’s first shot only grazed the creature, but Daddy managed to blow off two of its stumpy, sticky-padded feet. Then the shrade jumped onto Mudface. Grappling with the monster, Mudface sought the thing’s biting head and tried to pull it away, as he had sometimes done with swamp-snakes on Gopus. Far stronger than any snake however, the shrade constricted on him inexorably, crushing the life from him. His eyes bulged from his filthy face. Ichor from the monster’s wounds splattered him and burned his mouth. He made a high-pitched, keening sound of death.

Aghast, Daddy reached to help pull the monster off his son, but quickly realized it was useless. “Sorry, boy,” he rumbled. He repeatedly fired his hand-cannon point-blank. Chunks of flesh flew away from both Mudface and the shrade indiscriminately. Soon they sagged down together, still struggling. Life fluids ran slickly into the pool, staining the water with dark clouds.

Another sound came from the poolhouse, and Daddy whirled. He brought up his hand-cannon, his eyes wide and his bulky sides heaving. The gray shapes of three killbeasts charged him. He fired once, staggering the leader. Then the other two closed with him. Daddy threw himself back into the pool where Bili was still treading water. Maybe the kid knew something.

One of the deadly foot-knives was already sweeping up for his neck, however. Seeing that it wouldn’t reach, the killbeast diverted its kick and neatly knocked the hand-cannon from Daddy’s grasp. Three severed fingers dropped with the gun.

Daddy splashed into the water and came back up sputtering and howling. He gripped his damaged hand and watched with his mouth gaping as the killbeasts flitted about the rest of the pool area and disappeared into the house. More of them soon appeared at the door of the poolhouse and this time there was another type with them. This alien was clearly a leader. He bore two striking stalks that protruded from his head and blinked like eyes.

Daddy realized with a start that he was already thinking of these things as aliens, intelligent aliens. There simply was no question about it. That was what they were.

The leader alien had the killbeasts march them all out of the pool and lined them up. Sarah leaned on Bili heavily. He walked up and down in front of them, clearly inspecting them with his waving sensory stalks. In particular, he seemed taken with Daddy. His mandibles drooled noticeably as he examined Daddy’s vast belly. This filled Daddy with a great unease.

Finally, the leader stood erect and the three of them were hustled out of the house by the killbeasts. Sarah and the remains of Mudface were borne away on trachs, while Daddy and Bili were forced to march. Daddy had to be forced to enter the open mouth of the tunnel. Stumbling along in the darkness, he was soon heaving and puffing with exertion. The way back to the nest was long.

“Great Lady,” the Captain of the Gladius greeted Mai Lee, bowing slightly toward the video pick-up. The glare of the ships running lights reflected from his shiny bald pate. “To what to I owe the honor of the call?”

“Your word choice is most accurate,” said Mai Lee dryly.

“Excuse me?”

“You do indeed owe me,” she said with sudden vehemence. Her lined face broke through the pancake make-up in a fine network of a thousand wrinkles.

“I–I do not understand,” quailed the Captain, taking an involuntary step backward from the leering holo image of Mai Lee’s horrific face.

“Let me explain,” hissed the ancient mask of powdered leather. “First, you withheld the fact that Droad had a bodyguard of combat-trained giants. Second, you delivered information concerning myself and my assets to Droad, for a liberal gratuity, I have no doubt. Third, you have failed to mention the cargo of mechs in your hold that you have transported for Droad, with the express purpose of removing me from power.”

A sudden change overcame the Captain. He no longer crouched and simpered. Instead his stance became erect, almost swaggering. A hint of a smile tugged at his lips. “Ah, it seems you have become acquainted with the subtler points of our arrangement. I beg to differ on one point, however, milady. The mechs are to the best of my knowledge charged only with the protection of Lucas Droad, not with your destruction.”

Mai Lee became agitated. Her claw-like hands gripped her seat and she leaned forward, snarling. “It amounts to the same thing. You owe me.”

“What do you suggest?” asked the Captain, a bit ill-at-ease again. His eyes wandered away from the holo-plate and he frowned.

“You will destroy the mechs in their cargo pods. You will provide me with full holo-video of the event so that I may feel confident in your actions.”

“Your plan has merit… For you, anyway,” he said, drumming his fingers on his generous belly. “There is the small matter of increased payment, of course. Just enough to reward me for my efforts.”

“You will be paid the stipulated amount, nothing more,” said Mai Lee emphatically. “You owe me.”

“Hmm. Yes,” said the Captain, appearing to be in deep thought. “I must say that I find your attitude less than endearing. What if I simply let them go, perhaps with the financial blessings of the new Governor?”

“Then I’ll have you killed and be done with it,” said Mai Lee with absolute certainty.

The Captain blinked and made an alarmed, gasping sound.

“My agents left with you from Neu Schweitz and more have infiltrated the Gladius since you arrived. Don’t believe for a moment that I can’t do it, or that I won’t.”

“But such an action amounts to nothing more than petty revenge,” sputtered the Captain. He smoothed his nonexistent hair with a sweaty palm. “There would be no profit in it for anyone.”

Mai Lee shrugged. “My reputation is based on such actions. I find that my reputation is worth much in business dealings and I am therefore quite willing to take something of a loss here to enhance the aura of cooperation my name engenders. You have forfeited your life to a good cause at least, Captain. Let that be of some small comfort to you during your last seconds. Now, if you would excuse me,” she said, reaching for the cut-off button.

“Wait,” cried the Captain, his voice rising up and cracking. “I will comply!”

Mai Lee let him stew a moment, looking down as if she hadn’t heard, pretending to fondle the cut-off button. Finally, she looked up in disgust. “You agree to halt the exodus of the cargo?”

“Yes, immediately,” gushed the Captain. He wrung his reddened hands and attempted a sickly smile. “Your Excellency,” he added.

Mai Lee let play a long moment of indecision. “Very well. Your assassination is stayed,” she said and moved again to cut-off the connection.

“But wait, we haven’t yet discussed our new terms.”

Mai Lee made a gesture of exasperation. Her lips curled back in a grotesque snarl. “There are no terms, worm. You will stop them or die.”

She pounded her fist on the cut-off button and the screen went dark.

Inside the aft hold of the Gladius a twelve-foot tall shipping polygon of gray foam suddenly ruptured. A massive bio-mechanical hand, called a gripper, extruded from the breach. The gripper swiftly tore away the top of the foam, like a spoon topping a boiled egg. The mech lieutenant stepped out of the cocoon, swiveling his optics. As the hold was pitch-dark, he switched to infrared mode and quickly moved to activate his platoon.

This was the moment that the security forces had been waiting for tensely. The Captain had been emphatic about waiting for the leader of the mechs to reveal himself before taking him out. The others would then never be activated and that meant they could be salvaged. The salvage value of the combat-ready mechs would be much greater if they were still intact.

Unfortunately for the security team, however, they had failed to consider the fantastic sensory apparatus of a mech manufactured for combat. The mech lieutenant heard the ambushers breathing and sensed the heat of the sighting lasers playing on his head encasement. Instantly, he bounded away behind an immense carton containing a power-dozer.

Shouting to one another in alarm, the security team broke cover and tumbled forward in pursuit, snapping off shots at every flickering shadow. A sergeant roared in alarm and fired wildly into another of the gray cocoons, which had also extruded a bio-mechanical arm. The mech’s second gripper shot out to grasp the Sergeant’s shoulder, which was instantly crushed to jelly.

“Turn on the floods!” screamed a green-suited security woman. She ripped off her night-goggles and opened up on the cocoons as well, as many of them were now popping open.

A hailstorm of exploding bullets and lancing laser beams turned the gray foam coverings into a disintegrating cloud of particles. One mech’s arm was blown off. Unconcernedly, he reached out with his remaining gripper and squeezed the head off the nearest rifleman.

The floods went on, removing the mechs’ advantage of superior night-vision. The lights also revealed the dark towering form of the mech lieutenant who now stood in the midst of the humans.

Moving with berserk speed, the mech lieutenant yanked a rifle away from a man, his claw-like steel gripper taking a good portion of the man’s arm with it. Wielding the rifle first as a club, he swept it around at head-level, dropping three more security personnel. With fantastic dexterity he flipped the weapon into his cradling arms, found the trigger and fired into the fleeing pack of humans.

After that it was a rout. Leaving most of their people behind, the security forces escaped through the huge pressure doors into the ship. They hit the emergency pressure-loss toggles, shutting the doors with explosive force in the faces of the pursuing mechs.

A hurried meeting was held in the Captain’s briefing room.

“The aft hold is over six miles long and is an absolute maze of cargo,” began the Security Chief. He had been involved personally in the attack on the mechs and his right hand was damaged, crusty with dried blood and coated thickly with nu-skin. “I suggest we open the primary bay doors and space the entire hold. We can then recover most of the cargo with the tug fleet. Even mechs can’t operate in vacuum for long.”

“I won’t hear of it,” rumbled the Captain. “Your team’s incompetence has already cost me dearly. I certainly will not dump a billion credits worth of trade goods into orbit to rid the ship of a handful of crazy robots. This trip has too slim of a profit margin to suit me already.”

“Sir, these aren’t crazed robots,” explained the Chief with a hint of exasperation in his voice. “They’re highly intelligent and ruthless beings built for warfare. All we’ve managed to do is get them to classify the crew of this ship as hostiles.”

“What are our other options then?”

“Well, we should remember that the mech lieutenant doesn’t really care about us. I mean, he has a mission to do, to get down to the planet surface, I assume. We disabled their jump-flitters before they woke up, so he can’t get down without improvising.”

“What exactly are you suggesting?”

“Why don’t we just let them go? Give them the flitters they need, and let them out one of the airlocks.”

The Captain rubbed his chins and glared at the Chief. He puffed out his cheeks and threw his arms up in a gesture of exasperation. “I positively fail to understand your cowardice in this. We have a full combat-ready company of marines and several hundred security people on this ship. There are only sixteen of these pests in the hold and some of them are damaged. What you’re going to do is go in there and hunt them down and blow them apart.”