www.thevalentinechronicles.com presents:
Under the Gun
by
Paul L. Mathews
Prologue
Sandstorm
Twenty four hours after
Smoke poured from the burning metropolis and cast a
pall over the valley which the moonlight couldn’t penetrate. The acrid stench
of burning masonry and the sickening stench of roasting flesh swelled about the
onrushing army. Some—those younger and less hardened than their
compatriots—faltered or even vomited, half-digested food coating their chins
and armour, but they pushed on, rattling their sabres and brandishing their
guns.
Such was the destiny of Ferroc
Tar, a city that had dared to defy the Theocracy war-machine. Its fate sealed,
all that remained to be seen was who would escape this conflagration alive.
#
The square at the centre of Ferroc
Tar had once boasted a magnificence of alien sculpture, fountains, and a clock
tower said to be heartbeat of the Ferroc system. When
this clocked stopped, wise men said, the surrounding planets would fall soon
after.
Now, however, all was rubble and bent metal. What few
sculptures had survived the shelling were smashed
under the bellies of the Troika, Siberian Winter, and the Kronstadt
as these famous Three Sisters of the Omega Hammers touched down. The smoke,
sand and dust that choked the square swirled about the ships. The roar of their
engines drowned out the pounding of shells.
From the ruination of a fallen tower, with the ground
quaking, Ivan bolted for the Troika. In his arms he held an indistinct
shape smothered in a bloody blanket. As he ran, his kit chattering about his
waste and his breath ragged and forced, his comm
buzzed in his ear as Gregor hailed him.
“We don’t have much time, Ivan.” An unusual tension
framed Gregor’s voice. “I have multiple contacts on
screen. Their infantry’s going to be on top of us any minute—”
A boom and the sound of stone on
stone. Moments later tracer fire spat by and smashed into the Troika.
Ivan twisted as he dived, and fell on his side to as not to crush the cargo
held to his chest. His breath was driven from him, and a muted cry—small and
smothered—emerged from the blankets in his arms.
He looked back across the rubble. The first wave of
grounds forces had reached the square. At their spearhead were swift Domina Ki tanks,
and one now nosed into view, its chain guns firing as its turret traversed. It
would have the Troika in its sights
in seconds.
Then it was gone, smashed into scrap by the Troika’s
guns. Glowing shrapnel spiralled into the air and scrawled brief red scratches
on night sky.
“Now, would be a good time, Ivan.”
“I see that, Gregor—”
“And why can’t I raise Yevgeny?”
Ivan rose and ran toward the Troika. “Because I shot him in knees and left him behind.”
“Oh? Wh—”
Another boom, and another
building fell. Two more Domina Ki emerged into the square as the rubble bounced off
their brass hides and shattered beneath their tracks. Crowds of levies cowered
in their wake.
“—Why so?”
He glanced at the bundle in his arms. It stirred, and
a red arm emerged to fight against the tightness of the blanket. “Because he was slaughtering children.”
“Well, that makes sense. I hope he doesn’t come to us
for a reference.”
The Three Sisters fired simultaneously, obliterating
the tanks and shredding the infantry behind.
“Faster, Ivan! Faster!”
“Nearly. There.”
The ramp to the Troika’s
hangar lowered before him, and he ran with renewed vigour. Ignore the vagueness
in legs, he told himself. Ignore burning in chest. Ignore memory of dead
children. Ignore bullets spitting by.
Behind, rank upon rank of Theocracy levies and their
armoured masters poured into the square. They howled and chanted and swore, and
their weapons wailed and spat. A torrent of bullets and rockets squirted across
the square and rained against the armour of the Three Sisters.
“That’s it. Dust off in five. Ready or not, we’re
going, Ivan.”
“I love. You too. Gregor”
He reached the ramp, and fell upon it as he gulped
air. The metal beneath him vibrated as the Troika
lifted off. A whine bored into his ears as the ramp began to close. Bullets
still pinged off the metal about him.
Oblivious, he placed the bundle on the ramp. It
bucked, and he pulled back the blankets. A flurry of bright red as a child—no
more then nine years old—sprang from it and glared at Ivan. Trapped inside
dirty armour, and with the unit number V457 scrawled
across her forehead, she bared her teeth at Ivan and went for a gun she didn’t
have anymore: a gun Ivan had thrown into Tar’s river.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and held her in
place. He looked in her eyes, and shouted over the roar of engines, guns, and
hydraulics all around them. “Do not worry. You are safe now. You do not need to
fight anymore. My name is Ivan Valentine…”
The ramp finally slammed shut sealing off the Vermiddion—her unit’s only survivor—from her former life.
“…And I will take care of you.”
Part One
A Rock and a Hard Place
The Troika’s flight-deck smelled of cigarettes
and coffee, and the whistles and beeps of the faulty stations struggled to be
heard over the flapping of the tarpaulin secured over the smashed canopy. Vast
sat at the security station and studied the displays intently as thick smoke
curled from her jaffy stick, its tip bright in
the flight-deck’s half-light. Behind her, Katarina sat at the scanner stations,
azure skin highlighted green by monitors.
She shivered as she hugged herself. A forgotten
cigarette burned away between her fingers. She chewed at her bottom lip and
tried to concentrate on the scanner, the intermittent crackle from the faulty
screen making phantoms of the coffee steam that rose from her mug.
Katarina’s gaze twitched from side to side, up and
down, but still she couldn’t get a clear look at them. Oh, they were there
alright, just out of view, just tickling her peripheral vision, but they
continued to evade her, to tease her. Flat. Colourful.
Swift.
She rocked gently in her chair and swore under her
breath as she forced herself to pay attention to the scanner. Tatiana had been
gone for almost an hour now, and Ivan even longer.
Chewing her lip some more, her hand strayed to her belly. The pain had
gone—that awful stabbing pain she suffered whenever Tatiana was in danger—only
to be replaced with a dull ache. But what did that mean? The temperature out
there had dived so sharply the rain was turning into sleet. Pretty soon the
island would be consumed by a blizzard. Had Tatiana been trapped in the storm?
Was she with Ivan? Did they have the gear to survive the conditions? Or, worse,
what if they didn’t need it? What if Boyd had—?
An alarm beeped on the scanner. She sat forward and
peered at the monitor's wavering display. Five contacts approached the Troika.
“Who the fuck are you?” she muttered as she stabbed at the
scanner console. A string of results cascaded down her screen. Humans. Three female, one male, and one,
well, both, apparently. She shuddered. She didn’t even want to know how
that was possible. All five were armed.
She didn’t like the look of that. Gaze still on the
monitor, she took a heavy drag on her cigarette and a gulp of coffee before
saying over her shoulder, “Vast? I think we’ve got visitors.”
#
Still huddled in the depths of their rain capes, four
figures reached the Troika’s main airlock. They glanced about them. The
sleet had become thicker, and now heavy flakes of snow whirled about them.
“Scarlett?” the lead figure
asked as she looked over her shoulder at the smallest of the group. “What d’you see,
girl?”
Scarlett threw back the
hood of her cape to reveal a haggard face and vacant glass eyes. Thin
hair—coloured a vivid red—stuck to her withered forehead in the rain, and cheap
red dye bled into the deep furrows and wrinkles. She paused before answering as
she turned her blank eyes to some imagined horizon. “There’s
three on board, momma,” she said in a thick Confederate drawl. “Two on the flight-deck, an’ one in the brig.”
‘Momma’ nodded and asked, “Is Johnny ready?”
“Surely,” Scarlett replied,
but now she spoke with another woman’s voice. Although still possessed of a
Southern accent, it became ethereal and multi-layered, and echoed as though
transmitted through some psychic pipe. “I’m in poh-sition,
momma.” This new voice featured a slight whistle, as though spoken through
ill-fitting dentures. “Jus’ say the word.”
“Jus’ hol’ station,
Johnny,” Momma said before she turned to nod at the tallest of the group.
“Right, Woodrow...jam their gear.”
“Sure, momma,” Woodrow said as he produced a small
spherical device from the depths of his cape. A moment later he depressed a
button on its surface. “Tha’s it. Whoever’s on the Troika
can’t see shit, an’ their comms are jammed.”
Momma clicked her bony fingers. “Right,” she said as
she gestured at the airlock, “le’s
get this open.”
#
The scanners had gone down moments before an alarm
sounded on Katarina’s console.
“Damn it.” Katarina turned in her chair. “Vast? You’d
better get— Vast?”
But the bodyguard had already gone.
#
Smoke curled from the glowing red hole blown in the
airlock door. Now inside, the intruders removed their rain capes.
Woodrow ditched his first, and revealed filthy
petticoats that ballooned from beneath flak-armour and equipment pouches. His
hair, thin and greasy, hung to his dirty neck and his balding pate shone with
sweat. He produced a ‘kerchief and dabbed at his brow, his lined face choked
with layers of foundation caked over grime and liver-spots. He then produced
another explosive and approached the airlock’s inner door.
#
Hydraulics hissed as the flight-deck door shut behind
Vast. She stopped, and her shoulders sagged. Her head lowered, eyes lost in
shadows, and her shaven eyebrows arched upwards. Her hand went to the stump of
her amputated arm and cradled the wound, which still oozed through a fresh
dressing.
She sagged a little more, leant against a bulkhead,
and put her head into her hand. As she kneaded her temples with thumb and
forefinger, she gritted her teeth.
She raised her head to peer into her hand. It was
discoloured by what little blood hadn’t left a palm-print on her face. With
that bloody hand she drew a cumbersome revolver from its shoulder holster. As she pulled the hammer back, she head-butted the bulkhead, the
metal splitting her forehead open. More blood poured down her face as,
muscles bulging, she arched her back and let rip with a silent roar, her eyes
wide and wild, and her neck a mass of stretched sinew.
She sprinted toward the airlock.
#
“Trick, you’re on point.”
Trick nodded. Its body a patchwork travesty pieced
together from bits of men and women, it was stitched together with copper wire.
Clothes were stretched over one sagging breast, broad shoulders, and a slender
waist, and soiled half-mast trousers showed one male ankle and one female. The
female leg was a few inches shorter, the difference made up with a shabby
stiletto. One hand clutched a meat hook, the other a revolver.
The smell of burnt metal and rubber that wafted from
the devastated door fought with the smell of petrol as smoke belched from rusty
exhausts that erupted from sore wounds in Trick’s back. Muffled pops and bangs
accompanied its measured, mechanical steps as it stepped through the inner door
and into the corridor beyond. It stopped and peered into the darkness. Iris
valve eyes widened to reveal the faint glow of fire.
Trick turned and gave Momma the thumbs up. Its mouth
little more than a scabby wound sliced across its face, it spoke through two
small speakers nestled below its cheekbones. They buzzed as a male and female
voice synchronised to declare a succinct “Clear”, then it moved toward the end
of the corridor with Woodrow close behind.
Momma still lurked in the airlock, lost in the
shadows, Scarlett stood before her. Every bit as thin
as Woodrow, the slenderness of her frame was accentuated by a tight fitting
suit. Her withered hands clutched two tiny pistols, and her head tipped to one
side as her blank eyes starred someplace beyond the airlock wall.
“Okay, Johnny,” Momma said, “you hear me?”
“I’m here, momma.” Scarlett’s
lips were out of synch with the distant voice once again.
“Le’s go, Johnny,” Momma
said. “Le’s make our play.”
#
A tearing sound sliced through Katarina’s fear, and
she tore her petrified gaze away from the monitor. She squinted through
cigarette smoke. A knife blade, serrated and dirty, forged a trail down the
centre of tarpaulin, and the snow outside bled through the open wound.
Katarina rose from her chair and backed away. She
pressed herself against the bulkhead beside the flight-deck door, her eyes wide
and mouth open as she stared.
A head and shoulders pushed through cut in the
tarpaulin. An old woman, her face was lost under a morass of wrinkles and
scars, and her grey hair was plastered to her blotchy forehead. “Howdy. My
name’s Johnny,” she said, her smile dominated by brilliant white dentures.
“Min’ if I cut in?”
#
“Scarlett?”
Scarlett’s brow furrowed
slightly, and her hair-dye leaked into the corner of her glass eyes before
running down her cheeks in red tears. “One’s close, momma.
Real close.”
“Which?”
“I think it’s the Vermiddion,
Vast.”
Momma paused. “Don' matter.”
A glint in the half-light as Momma drew a revolver and cocked it.
Scarlett nodded and left
the airlock door. With Momma behind, she walked after Trick and Woodrow with
almost dainty steps.
They were waiting at the end of the corridor,
flanking the door with pistols raised to their shoulders. The growl of Trick’s
engines vexed the air. A gesture from Momma and the patchwork creature prodded
the door’s pressure pad with its elbow. The door opened, and the jigsaw moved
through in a crouch.
Its eyes pointed in different directions as it
surveyed the vac-suit prep-station before it. Although dark, the sterile white
surfaces offered some residual light. The walls were lined with lockers,
benches and cabinets.
Woodrow’s whisper pierced the silence. “You see anythin’?”
Trick shook its head.
Momma glanced at Scarlett.
“How close is ‘real close’, Scarlett?”
“Metres, at the most.”
Woodrow looked back at Momma, asking, “You sure about
this? I mean, Vast, she’s a Vermiddion, right?”
“Shut the hell up an’ get through that door,” Momma
said, voice edged with steel.
“Sure, momma.” Woodrow
crossed himself and stepped through. He moved forward to stand beside Trick
before shouting, “S’clear, Momma!”
Momma moved toward the door, but not quickly enough.
A clang of boot against metal, a blur as a buckled grill fell to the
prep-station deck, and a red figure covered in spider-web tattoos dropped from
the ceiling. Its elbow jabbed backward and struck the door’s pressure pad.
“Watch out!” Momma shouted, but it was too late. The
door slammed shut, sealing her off from Trick, Woodrow, and this red menace.
Then the gunfire started.
#
The hag stepped through the tarpaulin and stood on
the pilot’s controls. Two bandoliers—one loaded with bullets, the other with
macro-grenades—crossed over an old Confederate uniform that hung from her frail
frame. Her sleeves were rolled up, and track marks peppered her inner elbows. A
false smile dominated her face.
“Oooo, look at you,” Johnny
said as she stared at Katarina, voice whistling slightly through her false
teeth. “You real purdy. An’ so young. An’ I ain’t. That
jus’ ain’t fair.” The smile vanished as her
expression hardened. “Le’s see what I can do about
that.” She jumped down from the console.
Katarina stared so hard without blinking that her
eyes stung. Think! she told herself. Do something!
“What—?” She stumbled over the words before taking a deep breath. C’mon, Kat,
she thought. Look at her. She’s even older than Ivan! How hard’s
it gonna be to take her out?
She clenched her fists, closed her eyes and took a
deep breath before flinging herself at the crone. The next thing she knew she’d
been punched in the face. She reeled, raised her arm in instinctive fear, but
it was too late to block a further blow to the temple. Katarina’s knees buckled
as her vision blurred. She fell to the deck and lay there, dazed. What the
fuck? The flight-deck span and a wave of nausea crashed over her. How could she
be that quick?
“I know what you’re thinkin’,”
Johnny said with a dark smile. “I’m old, right? Ain’t
no way a youngster like you got nothin’ to fear. You could take me.” A harsh laugh.
“We’ll guess again, darlin’”
Katarina forced herself onto her hands and knees,
head hung low as she shook it. She had to get up. She had to fight!
She gritted her teeth and shook her head. Her limbs
trembled as adrenalin pumped through her, and her fingers flexed against the
cold metal deck. Nostrils flared, taking in the smell of her assailant—a heady
mixture of gun oil, BO, and cheap perfume—so strong that it soon overcame the
smell of coffee and cigarettes. Now her ears roared with the sound of the storm
outside, and the tiny pings and whistles of the consoles around became screams.
Her skin turned to gooseflesh as the nip in the air was even more
cruel. Even in this light, colours were more vivid—
Her heart skipped a beat as something tickled her
peripheral vision. She blinked and turned her head to focus on the shadows
beneath the security console.
There! She could see them again. Flat colours moving
across the deck like...
Her jaw dropped and her blood ran cold.
…like tattoos.
Then Johnny stepped between her and the console, and
Katarina looked up to glare at her.
“Look at you,” the aging killer said. “Such purdy skin. All flawless and Yankee blue.” A pause as she spat on
Katarina’s back. “I fuckin’ hate
blue.” She stepped forward, brandishing her knife over Katarina’s neck.
“But tha’s enough talk. Le’s dance.”
#
The sound of the escalating gunfight and the screams
of the dying bled from the Troika.
All the while the gathering storm howled a lamentation for those about to die.
To be continued...
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© 2009 Mathew David
Spaull. All rights reserved.