Chaos Cipher (88 page)

‘
What? Hey!
Where you going?’

Kyo suddenly
jumped out of the jeep and made his way to one of the
cells.

‘
Kyo! We’ve
no time for this, we have to move.’

He reached
the cell he was looking for and grabbed the bars to where Hattle
was lying in a deep sleep.

‘
HATTLE!’ He
screamed at the top of his lungs. But Hattle didn’t respond. Pania
put the jeep in reverse and backed up for some room. And Kyo made
some room himself for what was to follow. Pania put her foot down
and crashed into the caged cell at an angle, ripping the front bars
away. The entire vehicle lodged its Bull Bar and tow into the
metal, warping and twisting the alloy through the main integrity of
the cage. It had pinned its nose down, rear wheels up off the
floor. Kyo ran inside the cell and stood over Hattle, smacking his
cheeks lightly to bring him round.

‘
Hey,’ he
said, ‘c’mon Mad Hat, we gotta go.’

Kyo heard the
wheels of the jeep grinding, screeching against the ground and
burning out the airless polymerite tires into a cloud of
smoke.

‘
FUCK.’ Pania
screamed, punching the wheel. ‘We’re screwed.’

Kyo rested
his hand over Hattle’s ribs. He sensed the pain there, could almost
hear it through his skin, that something needed fixing. The wounds
were mending slowly, but he needed urgent attention. Hattle was
still intoxicated from whatever sedatives Krupin had been feeding
him. His eyes fluttered open and he stared at Kyo
drunkenly.

‘
Hey,’ he
said, drooling slightly. ‘It’s the gene-freak.’

‘
Oh, good,
back to normal,’ Kyo said, more to himself than to Hattle. ‘Help me
out here.’ He told Pania.

‘
The jeep is
screwed.’ She cried hands up in surrender.

‘
Forget the
jeep,’ said Kyo, hauling Hattle’s arm over his shoulder. ‘We’re
taking the Skybus.’

*

A fresh salvo
of velociter rounds burst in from the North wall now and tore away
heads, momentarily leaving their advancing bodies to take a few
steps in their last positions before capsizing dead. Others dove
for cover and fired back at the wall with futile resolve. Then, as
the baking fires in the exploded workshops reached their climax, a
fuel tank exploded somewhere in the engineering rooms. And a huge
fiery mushroom engulfed a nearby guard-tower, which keeled over
moments later with a loud and pained groan from the iron struts.
Flashes and snaps of electrics blazed around the tower as it
toppled like timber, tearing out a huge hole in the perimeter
fence. And plumes of dust and smoke and fire then inflated from the
furrowed ground where the tower came to a cataclysmic touchdown,
smashing magnetic perimeter field arrays.

With his
right eye aimed dutifully down the long barrel of the weapon, Gus
followed the green laser curser wherever Artex pointed.

‘
Ten
O’clock.’ He said, while Cedalion helped him find his targets over
and behind the walls where they took cover. Gus got the green spot
in sight and pulled the trigger.

FWU-PHOW

cracked the
sniper as the velociter round pulled a vortex of dense collapsing
air moisture chasing way behind the ballistic.

‘
MOVE!’ Gus
shouted.

And the two
mercenaries hurried through the abandoned roads and streets,
ducking by the shanty half collapsed ruins of houses and setting up
for a new position. Gus aimed his weapon.

‘
Where is
she?’ he roared like a bloodthirsty lion.

‘
I saw her
drive into a building,’ said Artex. ‘If she is not out of there
soon we’re going to have to go in after her. That jeep is our only
ticket through the Novus.’

FWU-PHOW and
another velociter punched through the prison walls where Artex
marked the laser.

‘
MOVE!’ said
Gus, weapon hauled over shoulder.

About two
hundred metres ahead now, he saw the great bistre of smoke rising
above the main watch-tower, which suddenly fell and unsettled
billowing mists of concrete. And he realised that Cedalion was no
longer able to hunt through the pollution of dust that drew across
the land. With visibility lost, he dropped out of the semi-qualia
and looked upon the camp using his oculars only. Artex breathed
steadily as he ran beside Gus who alone eased a steady pace with
the weight of the twenty kilogram weapon.

‘
Gus,’ he
panted. ‘I lost visual. Cedalion can’t see through the
smoke.’

‘
Then they
won’t see us coming in,’ Gus laughed. ‘Let’s go and fucking knock,
brother.’

*

Pania let the
nozzle of her rifle lead her into the daylight. She kept the weapon
firm against her shoulder as Kyo dragged Hattle over his back in a
fireman’s carry. He struggled to balance over the boxer’s weight,
kneeling down and panting for air at every stop while Pania cleared
the way. Her rifle chattered, and her bullets tore up the ground
near the toes of scampering inmates dashing for cover.

‘
Hurry, this
way,’ she told him, hurrying ahead.

Kyo grunted
as he followed, his legs stiff, not quite as zealous as hers. She
fired at the guard-towers, a staccato of blasts rattling out an
entire cartridge, bullets sparking over the rails. Kyo led her to
the Perigrussia Skybus and he put Hattle down onto the loading
ramp, gasping for air. His muscles burned with acid, his shoulders
and back ached and he cursed to the sky for energy.

‘
I said, move
it!’ Pania said, dragging him to his feet as she raced along the
loading ramp into the cargo hold. They each took one of Hattle’s
wrists and hauled him inside on his back. And through the smoke and
debris, they saw two figures advancing fast. Pania peered down and
was about to open fire when she recognised Artex and
Gus.

‘
Where’s the
ride?’ Artex shouted.

‘
Got a new
one,’ she claimed, thumbs up to the Perigrussia Skybus above them.
Gus set up at the bottom of the loading ramp and fired another
round into the smoke.

WHU-PHOW and
something in the distance burst into hot crimson fires.

‘
Fine!
Inside!’ He shouted, shouldering the weapon and racing up the
ramp.

*

Kyo had never
seen the bridge of the Perigrussia Skybus before now. The seats
were arranged in triangulation, five in all, one at the very front.
He had already manned the main pilot seat and was staring in
confusion at the holographic readouts.

‘
Know how to
fly this?’ Pania asked with a jubilant but ironic tone.

‘
Not yet,’
Kyo said looking around.

Artex trudged
quickly onto the bridge, heavy boots printing mudded black patterns
across the floor behind him.

‘
Out,’ he
ordered, arriving at the pilot seat and pushing Kyo away. ‘Belt
up.’

Pania and Gus
jumped into side chairs and Kyo did the same. Their harnesses
descended, pinning them into the inertial padding and their heads
were braced in inertial support material.

‘
Hey.’ Pania
objected, ‘You’re a pilot?’

‘
Not yet,’
Artex said with a wry smile, ‘sit tight.’

From outside,
flashes of light scintillated over the glass and vibrations rocked
the ship as something opened fire from behind the veil of smoke.
Artex squinted to make out what was there and he gazed in disbelief
at the apparition of a slender and skeletal figure, its suit torn,
its pale face smiling, vicious metal teeth beset into blackened
gums.

‘
What in the
bowels of hell is that thing?’

‘
Fear,’ said
Kyo, also noticing B’Two’O now. ‘Pure fear. Get us out of here,
Eagles.’

As B’Two’O
stood and continued to bleed, its odious gurning affixed like a
theatrical pantomime mask, the Chinooks gunner’s opened fire,
blasting beyond the clouds of smoke from behind the monster.
Cursing, Artex placed his hands into the seat rest and neurophased
with the Perigrussia Skybus, running several encryption programs.
Laux hadn’t fully applied his neurophase for a neurosphere and
Artex knew it, but he was booted enough for basic navigational
programs, which meant he could fly this Skybus at least.

The Chinook’s
gunners flashed and stabbed with light, and B’Two’O was silhouetted
ahead of the blitzkrieg, a distant smile acerbically depicted upon
its warped features as it pointed at the Perigrussia as though his
heil was an aim for the ship’s gunners. The Perigrussia Skybus took
a beating as armour piercing bullets tore into the cadonavis like a
tin opener. With a blast of fire the engines finally burned into
action.

‘
Come on you
heavy bastard!’ Artex urged, lifting the Perigrussia Skybus into
the grey solitude of the Siberian sky. But there were no cheers as
they left camp, a rain of fiery bullets shooting after them from
the Titan Chinook on the landing platform below. Artex activated
the neuro-ligature’s basic network to visualise the areas outside.
Sensory feedback detected the Chinook also taking-off from the pad
in hot pursuit, its systems remotely piloted by B’Two’O’s
neuromissions. Artex couldn’t believe that monster was still alive.
He could have sworn he put a hole right through its
torso.

‘
That Titan
back there is still neurophased with the Chinook!’ Artex said, ‘the
bastard still isn’t dead and he’s on our fucking tail!’

The Chinook’s
secondary gunners rattled out tracers of white light towards them,
a hail-storm of high-velocity bullets clattering across the once,
beautifully untarnished silver of the Perigrussia’s
hull.

‘
Cheeerist
,’ Artex said, turning back
over his shoulder to face Gus. ‘We’re in so much
trouble.’

‘
Go faster.’
Kyo responded, rocking in his harness as the ship bucked, his face
ashen with consternations of imminent death.

‘
I thought I
killed that bastard down there.’ Gus shouted. ‘How is that thing
still alive?’

‘
You did kill
it,’ said Pania.

‘
But we’re
faster, right?’ Kyo fretted. ‘We can get away.’

‘
Faster than
a military carrier?’ Artex asked. ‘Let’s hope.’

‘
Release the
cargo,’ Kyo suggested.

‘
Can’t.’ Said
Artex, ‘we left Hattle in the cargo hold.’

‘
So?’ Pania
called. ‘Release the cargo and ditch the rat-bastard.’

‘
No Pania,’
Kyo cried.

More alarms
began signalling through the ship and they once more dropped over
fifty metres before recovering their altitude, a rain of fiery
bullets from the perusing Chinook tracing their motions.

‘
We might
have to!’ Gus shouted to Kyo.

‘
HOLD TIGHT,
FELLAS!’ Artex screamed furiously.

Kyo turned
back to see the Chinook out of an overhead visualisation screen.
More shots rang through the hull and an arch of tracer bullets from
the gunners tore a scorched line of holes over the left wing and
one of the engines on the Perigrussia Skybus quickly burst into
flames.

Artex gassed
the engine with whatever coolant was left in the tank, but the ship
was in a sorry state and the Chinook was getting closer, its
gunners more accurate and powerful as the distance between them
closed. The alarms sounded.

Coolant
expelled...

‘
Oh,
Fucknuts,’ Artex cried frenetically and beat the unresponsive
control deck with his fists. ‘We’ve had it.’

Kyo felt the
rush of adrenaline race through his blood and he suddenly became
aware of his glowing veins. The sonorous alarms and red lights
bleating though the cockpit hung in a singular moment and
everything for him began to slow. His mind worked to defy normal
perceptions of time, bringing everything to a clear moment where
seconds became minutes. He turned to see Pania, who had her eyes
jammed shut and was mouthing a prayer to the heavens or soul
seeking or something.

Sparks from
the electrical failures hung like gloaming motes of scintilla and
he watched them pass in slow motion like dandelion seed heads in a
breeze, extinguishing innocuously over his skin where his veins
still pulsed with light equally as bright. He heard his breath ease
out, the throb of blood pressure squeezing beneath his ears,
slowing to long palpitations, though he knew his heart was really
racing. He saw the stir of objects unsettled from the broken parts
of the bridge command and shards of brittle material arrowing
around the room. Is this what happens at the moment of death? he
wondered. In these last few seconds, does the mind fight to cling
to reality just a little longer?

And then,
ahead, he saw a new light glowing like a solitary star, falling
through the sky, descending towards them. Its radiance was
blinding, incrementally growing more brilliant than the sun as it
appeared through the higher clouds. A light that bled into the
cockpit through the view shield, and cast the shadows of their
seats and the ship’s internal structure in tremulous black stencils
proffered across the floor.