Hellworld

  Hunter turned to Krystel to tell her it was safe to move off, and then froze as the wall behind her cracked open and fell apart. Long branches of spiked vine burst out of the stonework, reaching for the Investigator. She threw herself to the ground and rolled out of reach, but by the time she was back on her feet again the vines had spilled out onto the street, forming an impenetrable barrier between her and the Captain. A score of leaping, hopping insects, each a foot long or more, came flying out of the wall and descended on Krystel, their long jaws snapping hungrily. She activated her force shield and met them with her sword. Hunter picked off one of the insects with his gun, exploding its dark grey carapace, but couldn't do anything else to help her. He threw himself at the twisting vines, hacking at them with his sword. The barbs rattled harmlessly against his steelmesh tunic and broke themselves against his force shield.

  Krystel swung her sword double-handed, her cold grin back again. The huge insects fell beneath her blade, and the uninjured feasted on the fallen. Krystel laughed aloud. This was what she had been trained for, the moment that gave purpose to her life; to be the perfect, invincible killing machine. The aliens came to her and she slaughtered them, and was content.

  Hunter finally used his next to the last grenade on the vines. The blast blew him a hole through the writhing branches, and he forced his way through, ignoring the scratches to his bare face and hands. The Investigator had surrounded herself with crippled insects, and for the moment seemed to have run out of targets. He grabbed her arm and hustled her off down the street. For a moment she struggled against him, and then the killing fever left her, and she ran along beside him, heading for the copper tower.

  And behind them came the aliens, in all their many shapes.

  Corbie lifted his gun and fired blindly into the darkness. The brilliant energy bolt illuminated the hall of memories briefly, and punched a hole clean through the chest of the armoured alien as it tried to break through the wall. It screamed once as the darkness returned, a curiously high-pitched sound from such a large creature. Corbie glared wildly about him, and reached blindly for the esper. He knew she was somewhere close at hand—he could hear her dry heaving—but he couldn't seem to locate her with his hands. And then his fingers brushed against something hard and unyielding, and his heart missed a beat.

  "Stand still," said Lindholm quickly. "And keep your hands to yourself. Start thrashing around in the dark and we'll end up killing each other. Turn on your force shield; that'll give us some light while I get the field lantern out of your backpack."

  Corbie activated his shield, and the glowing energy field appeared on his arm, the pale light dispelling some of the darkness. Lindholm glanced briefly at the armoured alien lying slumped in the wreckage of the wall, and rummaged in Corbie's backpack for his lantern. Corbie grabbed DeChance by the shoulders and got her on her feet again. She leaned tiredly against him and clung to his arm for support. The dry heaves died away, leaving her pale and trembling. Corbie looked at her anxiously. Her face was gaunt and pinched, and her eyes didn't track. Off in the distance, from every side, there came the sound of alien screams and cries. They were getting closer. Lindholm finally got the lantern working, and the hall of memories reappeared around them.

  "We've got to get out of here, Sven," said Corbie. "The esper's out of it, and the aliens will be here any minute."

  "I think you're probably right," said Lindholm. He looked around for an exit, but there was only the doorway they'd come through. Part of one wall had collapsed, but the armoured alien blocked the way with its body, and already the creature was showing signs of stirring. Lindholm swore briefly, and pointed his disrupter at the floor. He pressed the stud, and the searing beam of energy smashed open a hole. The floor groaned and shuddered. Cracks spread out from the hole, but after a few moments the floor grew steady again. Corbie gave Lindholm a hard look.

  "Down there? Are you kidding? There could be anything down there!"

  "Have you got a better idea?"

  Corbie scowled unhappily. "Some days you just shouldn't get out of bed in the morning."

  Lindholm sat down on the floor and swung his legs into the hole. "I'll go first, and you can hand the esper down to me. Right?"

  "Got it," said Corbie. He manhandled the unresisting esper over to the hole, and then waited impatiently as Lindholm lowered himself into the darkness. Corbie glared back through the open doorway. He couldn't see anything in the gloom, but he could hear the aliens drawing nearer. It sounded like there were a lot of them. Over in the wreckage of the wall, the armoured alien slowly raised its head. Its eyes glowed blue in the dim light. Corbie looked at the dazed esper, and wondered what the hell the memory sphere had shown her to produce such a violent reaction. On second thought, he decided he probably didn't want to know. Lindholm hissed at him from down in the hole, and Corbie carefully lowered the esper into Lindholm's waiting arms. DeChance murmured something indistinct, but didn't come out of her daze. The armoured alien heaved itself out of the wreckage of the broken wall. Corbie quickly sat down by the hole, and pushed himself off into the darkness below.

  Under the floor he found himself in a circular tunnel some seven feet high. After the huge scale of the other buildings, the tunnel felt decidedly claustrophobic. Moisture ran down the rough stone walls and pooled on the floor. It smelled awful. Lindholm held up his lantern and looked up and down the tunnel. It stretched away into the distance for as far as he could see. Lindholm and Corbie looked at each other.

  "So, which way now?" said Corbie.

  "Beats me," said Lindholm. "One way is as good as another, I suppose."

  "No," said DeChance. "That way."

  She pointed down the tunnel with a trembling hand. Lindholm tentatively released his hold on her, and smiled encouragingly when she managed to stay upright without his support. Her eyes had focused again, but she looked awful. Her face was pale and haggard, the skin stretched tightly over the bones. Sweat ran down her face, and her eyes had a sunken, bruised look. Her hands were trembling violently.

  "How are you feeling?" said Corbie gently.

  DeChance grinned. "I'll live."

  "What did the ball show you?" asked Lindholm.

  "Not now," said DeChance. She pointed down the tunnel again. "We have to go that way, and quickly. The aliens will be here soon. They want us badly, and they won't give up. They want what makes us sane. Our certainty. I think this tunnel is part of what used to be the sewers. We'll follow the tunnel until we're somewhere near the copper tower, and then blast our way back out again."

  "How are we going to know when we've reached the tower?" said Corbie.

  "I'll know," said DeChance. "The device burns very brightly in my mind."

  Corbie looked at Lindholm, who shrugged. Corbie shook his head disgustedly. "I might have known I'd end up having to make all the decisions in this group."

  "But you do it so well, Russ," said Lindholm solemnly. "Haven't I always said you were natural officer material?"

  "You know, Sven, you could be replaced."

  "What by?"

  "Practically anything."

  A long, hooked leg bristling with thorns groped down through the hole from above. The Squad backed quickly away from it.

  "Right," said Corbie. "That does it. Let's get moving. Sven, you've got the light so you take the lead. We'll follow. And let's not hang about, people. This strikes me as a very unlucky place to be cornered in."

  He cut the probing leg in two with his sword. The severed end fell to lie twitching on the tunnel floor. Lindholm moved quickly off down the tunnel, and Corbie and DeChance hurried after him. Corbie took the esper's hand to guide her, and then had to fight to keep from snatching his hand back again. Her skin felt wet and slippery, and somehow . . . loose, as though she'd lost a lot of weight in a hurry. He started to say something, but DeChance began to tell him what she'd learned from the memory sphere, and he forgot his question as he listened. The intricate tale of broken dreams and raging madness too
k a long time to tell, and sounded all the worse for being told in such dark and claustrophobic conditions. By the time the esper had finished, both Corbie and Lindholm had taken to glancing anxiously over their shoulders at the darkness beyond the lantern light.

  The tunnel began to slope noticeably downwards and the floor was covered in steadily deepening water. By the time DeChance stopped speaking, it was lapping up around their ankles. The water was dark and scummy, and there were things floating in it that Corbie preferred not to look at too closely. The esper and the marines waded along in silence for a while. The sound of their boots splashing through the water seemed unnaturally loud on the quiet.

  "You think the great device is housed somewhere in the copper tower?" said Corbie finally.

  "I think the tower is the device," said DeChance. "A single huge machine, still functioning after God knows how many centuries."

  "So what are we going to do when we get there?" asked Corbie. "Blow it up?"

  "I don't know. Maybe." DeChance rubbed at her forehead, as though bothered by a headache. "Somehow I don't think it'll be that simple. The device can defend itself against attacks if it has to." She broke off suddenly and stopped dead in her tracks. The two marines stopped with her. DeChance stared ahead into the darkness. "There's something there, something . . . strange. It's waiting for us to come to it."

  Corbie and Lindholm trained their guns on the darkness. For a long moment, nobody moved. The Squad's force shields hummed loudly on the quiet. Corbie listened hard, but couldn't hear anything moving. The filthy water was calm and undisturbed.

  "How close is it?" he whispered to DeChance.

  The esper frowned. "It's waiting, just beyond the light. It feels . . . strange, unfinished."

  "Maybe we should just turn around and go back," suggested Corbie.

  "No!" DeChance said urgently. "We have to get to the copper tower! It's our only hope. Besides, the creature would only follow us."

  "Terrific," said Corbie. "This just gets better and better."

  "We could always throw a grenade at it," said Lindholm.

  Corbie looked at him. "In a confined space like this? Are you crazy? The blast would come straight back and make mincemeat out of us!"

  "Sorry," said Lindholm. "I wasn't thinking."

  "You'd better start quickly," said DeChance. "It's moving towards us."

  Lindholm and Corbie levelled their guns on the darkness. DeChance drew hers, but her hand was still too unsteady to aim it. She activated her force shield and peered watchfully over the top of it. A faint, glowing light appeared deep in the dark of the tunnel, growing steadily stronger as it approached the Squad. Corbie bit back a curse as the creature's form became clear, lit by its own eerie light. It had no shape as such, only a frothing mass of eyes and bubbles that filled the tunnel from wall to wall like a wave of onrushing foam. Great snapping mouths appeared and disappeared as the creature surged forward. Lindholm fired his disrupter. The blast went right through the boiling mass. A few bubbles popped, but otherwise the beam had no effect. Corbie stepped forward and cut at the mass with his sword. The blade swept through the foam without pausing.

  Corbie stumbled forward and fell on one knee, caught off balance by the lack of resistance. A snapping mouth tried for his hand and only just missed. More mouths reached for him. And then the creature came into contact with Corbie's shield, and the bubbles popped loudly on meeting the energy field. The fanged mouths disappeared back into the staring, boiling mass. Corbie swept his shield at it, and more bubbles burst. The creature began to quickly withdraw down the tunnel. In a few moments it had disappeared back into the darkness and was gone. Corbie got to his feet again, and shook his wet leg disgustedly.

  "I just know I'm going to catch something horrible from this stuff. Esper, is that thing out there, waiting in the darkness, or is it still running?"

  "Still running," said DeChance. "I don't think anything's been able to hurt it in a long time. Now let's get moving again, please. It's a long way to the copper tower, and we want to get there before dark. Things are worse in the city at night."

  The Squad moved on through the narrow tunnel in their own little pool of light. The tunnel branched repeatedly, but the esper always seemed to know which way to go. Ceramic pipes lined the walls for long stretches, coiled around each other as often as not, before disappearing back into the stonework. I suppose even an alien city needs good sewers, thought Corbie. And this place smells so bad it's got to be part of a sewer. I've known slaughterhouses that smelled better than this.

  The water grew deeper, lapping up around their knees. Fungi began to appear on the walls in shades of grey and white, often spread in wide patches more than two inches thick. Corbie was careful not to touch any of it. It looked like it might be hungry. Patches of swirling scum appeared on the surface of the water, and Corbie watched them suspiciously. He had a strong feeling some of them were following him. And then the Squad came to a sudden halt as they spotted a large smooth-edged hole in the stone wall to their right, some distance ahead.

  "Can you sense anything, esper?" asked Corbie quietly.

  "I'm not sure. There's something there, but it's shielded. I can't get a hold on it." She rubbed tiredly at her forehead. "It could be some creature's lair, or even some form of machinery."

  "You stay here," said Corbie. "Sven and I will go take a look at it."

  "You could have at least asked for volunteers," said Lindholm mildly. "Power's gone to your head, Russ."

  "Moan, moan, moan," said Corbie. "You never want to do anything fun."

  The two marines moved slowly forward, gun and sword at the ready. Their force shields muttered quietly to themselves. The hole in the wall seemed to grow larger the closer the marines got. Finally, they stood before a six foot wide hole, studying the darkness within from behind the safety of their force shields.

  "Can't see a damned thing," muttered Corbie. "How about you, Sven?"

  "Nothing. Can't hear anything either. I suppose it could be a lair that was abandoned some time back. The esper said the aliens had all been asleep for a long time."

  "True. And I can't imagine anything alien enough to stay down here by choice."

  Deep within the hole, something moved. Lindholm and Corbie raised their guns reflexively, only to freeze in place as an endless tide of darkness came rushing out over them. The esper cried out once, but neither of them heard her.

  Corbie was standing on a snow-swept battlefield, surrounded by the dead. There was blood on his uniform, only some of it his. The double moons of the Hyades drifted on the night skies. The Ghost Warriors had been and gone, and the Empire marines had fallen before them. The marines were first-class soldiers, but they were only flesh and blood, and they'd stood no chance against the Legions of the living dead. Blood stained the snow all around, and the bodies of the slain stretched for as far as Corbie could see. Nothing moved save a single tattered banner flapping in the wind. Corbie's sword was broken and his gun was exhausted. Out of a whole Company of Imperial marines, he was the only survivor.

  Ghost Warriors. Dead bodies controlled by computer implants. The ultimate terror troops; unthinking, unfeeling, unstoppable. Corbie had thought himself a brave man, until he'd had to face the Ghost Warriors. They tested his courage again and again, until finally they broke it. The Legions of the dead were enough to break anyone.

  Corbie looked around the silent battlefield. It seemed to him that he should be somewhere else, but he couldn't think where that might be. There was a sudden movement close at hand, and Corbie fell back a step as one of the Empire corpses lifted its head from the snow and looked at him. Dried blood had turned half its face into a dark crimson mask, but its eyes gleamed brightly. It rose unsteadily to its feet to stand before Corbie. There was a gaping wound in its chest where one of the Ghost Warriors had ripped its heart out. The corpse grinned suddenly, revealing bloody teeth.

  "You always were a survivor, Corbie."

  "Major . . ." Corbie tri
ed to explain, to apologise, but his voice was harsh and dry, and the words wouldn't come.

  "Don't talk to me, survivor. You haven't the right. We stood our ground, followed our orders, and fought and died, as marines should. You chose not to, survivor."

  "I stood my ground."

  "Only until it became clear that we were losing. Until it was clear the Company hadn't a hope in hell against the Legions. We stood and fought to the last man. You burrowed in among the bodies of the fallen, smeared yourself with blood, and hoped you'd be mistaken for just another corpse. And so the Company fell, and you alone survived to tell of it. I had such hopes for you, Corbie. But you betrayed us. You should have died with us, where you belonged."

  "Someone had to survive, to warn Command."

  "That wasn't why you did it. You were afraid. You've been afraid ever since." The corpse drew its sword. "Well, solider, now's your chance to pay in full."

  Corbie threw away his broken sword, and drew the long Service dagger from his boot. "Only a fool dies for no good reason."

  Their blades met, the clash of steel on steel carrying clearly across the silent battlefield.

  Lindholm stood in the centre of the Great Arena, and all around him the Golgotha crowds cheered their appreciation of another death. The losing gladiator was dragged away, leaving a bloody trail behind him. It wasn't a subtle crowd gathered here today. They had no eye for the finer points of swordsmanship and defence. They wanted blood and suffering, and they didn't care whose. They'd paid to see death, right there in front of them, and they couldn't get enough of it. Their cheers grew louder and more frenzied as Lindholm's next opponent entered the Arena. Even before he turned to look, Lindholm knew who it was; who it would have to be. Tall, lithe, and graceful, Elena Dante acknowledged the cheers of the crowd, and saluted Lindholm with her sword. Dante, the smiling killer, the darling of the Golgotha crowds.