Crystal Venom (33 page)

Marko walked around another corner and looked into the gardens, then looked down the rows of damaged plants to see the slowly twitching, handless body of a naked male impaled on a garden stake. It sounded as if he was choking so Marko left him to his impending death, deciding to take his Soul Saver later.

He made his way farther up the spiral staircase until he was on the electronics and stores deck. Patrick did not look very well either; although he was still functioning, a great deal of his faculties had been ripped away, explaining why Marko had not been able to hear him.

Marko did not have long to wait for the rest of the crew. The major was not carrying a weapon, and Marko soon saw why. Michael’s fingers had all been crushed and his bare toes were in the same shape. Fritz could not talk as his jaw was broken and everyone else appeared to have been whipped, their skin torn and shredded in parts. Everyone was only wearing underwear and they had murder in their eyes.

‘Just as well you arrived when you did, Marko,’ the major said. ‘They were about to start gang raping every one of us. That was their next act of degradation. And that absolute bastard, Sirius, just watched and recorded everything done to us. I hope you dealt with that director, Marko. But the horror creature I really want to get my hands on is the producer, who is on the bridge. Door’s locked, I see.’

Marko curtly nodded. ‘Yeah, well, I have the director’s Soul Saver in my pocket, boss. You can talk to him yourself when you feel up to it. Jan’s gone, but I suppose that you already know that. No doubt they told you.’

They nodded sadly as he asked, ‘Where is Flint?’

Harry slowly spoke. ‘Don’t know, Marko. We were invited up from the planet one by one, supposedly by the boss, and found these bastards waiting for us. Flint vanished as soon as our comms were stripped from us. They also hit us with a cocktail that suppressed our med nanotes. They are from a faction of the Games Board which was behind the attack on us at 27’s chromium mill. This was payback as far as they were concerned.’

Marko’s rage built to new heights. ‘Flint? Can you hear me?’

The mechanical answered immediately. ‘Yes. Marko. I am on the bridge, staying close to the producer. They are very annoyed that Patrick was damaged as they cannot access the internal video systems, so they do not know what has happened. Patrick is playing dumb. He is damaged, but actually disseminated himself though other parts of the ship a long time ago. Just tell him when you are ready and he will open the doors. I shall distract the producer on your word.’

Marko walked to the door with Harry on one side and Jasmine on the other as she passed him a combat shotgun. ‘Now, Flint!’

The doors slid open to reveal a falling producer, bellowing in pain and anger, and a startled Expeditor, who took three blasts from their shotguns, effectively shattering his armour, and filling him with dozens of six-millimetre holes. He crashed against the bulkhead then slid to the floor looking very dead. Marko walked over to where the producer had gone down behind one of the consoles to find that Flint had severed her Achilles tendons and was now perched on her face with two of his arms deep inside her ears.

‘I can reach her Soul Saver from here if you wish, Marko.’ Flint said. ‘Very nice to see you and I am so sorry to hear about Jan.’

Marko snarled. ‘Do it!’

The producer’s eyes bulged as her body went rigid, then her legs and arms started pounding the floor as her brain died. A few moments later he had another pair of Soul Savers to add to the collection.

The major wasted no time hobbling over to his command pod. ‘Battle stations, people. Time for payback. Could someone put my helmet on for me, please?’

Marko frowned. ‘Flint said that Patrick was playing dumb and that he is functional, boss.’

‘Yeah I know, we set him up like that. Patrick, bring everything online. Rotate very slowly until the primary weapon is bearing on the Games Board frigate. Fritz, you are on comms. Get our neural backups working now. Harry, I need you here on the bridge. Everyone else suit up and get to your fighters.’

They raced down through
Basalt.
Marko grabbed the two remaining Expeditors left alive from the mess, untied and marched them down onto the hangar deck. ‘You have one chance only to see this day out,’ he told them. ‘Get that reader and tell me whose body that is and make sure you broadcast to the Orbitals.’

One of the men sneered at him. ‘You are a dead man walking. Why should we help you?’

A horribly dark smile appeared on Marko’s face. ‘Look around, lots of blood and severed bits, oh, and I have these. If you do not want to join them in an electronic soup, being tortured until you go completely insane, you will do precisely as I say.’

They took one look at his bloody glove with the iridescent dark green Soul Savers in it, gulped, and immediately did as he asked. As soon as they had confirmed the Soul Saver in Jan’s remains as that of Clarissa Jammess and broadcast the information, he bundled them into an escape pod and sent them planetwards. He then lifted Jan’s remains from the cold deck and, wondering what he should do with her, standing staring down at her, he started to cry again. Glint arrived with Jasmine and Lilly. Glint walked up and, leaning against him, quietly gave him a hug.

Jasmine gently took Jan from Marko. ‘I’ll take her, Marko. Fight now, weep later.’

She walked out of the bay and returned emptyhanded a few moments later. He nodded at them both, turned, and went on board
Blackjack.
‘Tux, get
Blackjack
to show me the weapons status.’

The suit said, ‘Talk with
Blackjack
yourself, Marko.’

Marko looked up. ’
Blackjack
?’

A very fast voice answered, at the extreme edge of his comprehension.

‘Get to your
Sledgehammer,
Marko. We fight in formation. Where you go, the Lilly, the Jasmine and I will follow. Indicate a target and we will deal with it. Leave Glint with me. He is safest here. I have already jacked Nail into the system. I compliment you on their design. Inspired.’

Tux wasted no time in folding down into the seat and they slid up into
Sledgehammer.
As he was being locked down, the controls were coming alive, as they had already launched through the airlock. He looked across and saw that
Basalt’s
new reactive skin was taking on the look of whatever was behind it in line of sight, although in Marko’s HUD
Basalt’s
solid form was still showing. He took control of
Sledgehammer
and dropped away from the side of
Blackjack.
His tactical display immediately started plotting targets as a dozen small spherical vacuum-capable fighters started to pull away from the Games Board frigate towards
Basalt.
Marko had no time for the pleasantries of mano-a-mano and told
Blackjack
to deal with them.

The response was dramatic. Something small, deep cobalt blue and horrifically fast flashed across and detonated in the midst of the enemy fighters, vaporising the closest and shattering the others.

‘What the hell was that?’ Marko yelled.

Jasmine answered. ‘Fritz, while you were on the planet, became bored and created a new smaller version of the Compressor while still composing music. Said the idea came from 1990s electronic! He calls them Cobalts. Unfortunately, he only had time to build a few.
Blackjack
just used the one allocated to her.’

Basalt
was now turning quickly as a clutch of anti-ship missiles leapt from the Games Board ship.
Basalt
countered with the central spine rail gun spitting a stream of shells, which chewed the entire front portion of the frigate to pieces. More fighters were upon them as the remaining missiles all detonated some distance away; they were picked off by
Basalt’s
lasers and rail guns. From the corner of his eye Marko saw one of the antimatter engines hit, taking out a third of
Basalt’s
main propulsion. The other Cobalts must have been fired as suddenly very large pieces were vaporised from the enemy frigate’s hull with the internal atmosphere escaping uncontrollably. The remains of the ship started to tumble.

Everyone targeted individual fighters with their missiles and guns, steadily wiping them from the sky. Marko dived down between two, firing a high-acceleration missile at one as his belly gun chewed the propulsion system off the other. The missile hit the nose of the other, destroying its weapons, so it was of no further interest to him.
Sledgehammer,
with its central ring control, was much faster to respond than the enemy fighters, but Marko was watching his countermeasure magazines emptying very quickly.

A proximity warning blared as he saw four small missiles rapidly descending on
Sledgehammer.
He rolled hard, climbed and then flicked over and dived against another fighter, passing so close that the top of his canopy gently brushed the upper surface of the fighter, and as soon as he felt the contact he dropped a pair of flares directly among its fuel tanks, with the resulting explosion damaging the pursuing missiles as they had got that close.

The major now yelled, ‘All craft break away and dock. We are leaving, as two more frigates are inbound. You have three minutes.’

They punched out, smashing a few more fighters before turning and running for
Basalt.
Marko’s displays showed that they had all taken damage, with Julie unable to maintain control of her Skua. He looked across and envisioned her inside
Blackjack,
and the ship reacted, sweeping up under her and irising the whole top deck open to envelop the Skua. Jasmine was missing most of her port wing and Lilly was losing power, as they tried to accelerate to catch
Basalt.
Marko looped over the top of Lilly, rolled, punched a few extra holes in a very tenacious GB fighter who obviously did not know when to quit, flipped over on his back and then rammed
Sledgehammer
into the rear of Lilly’s Hanger, pouring on the power.

They only just made it onto
Basalt’s
hull, with Minh Pham actually crashing against the clamps, because his Skua had also taken that many hits as to be only barely controllable. Marko looked across into a gaping hole in the side of his cockpit to see his friend waving and giving him a thumbs up. Marko grinned and thought, Tough bastard!

Two full-power Compressors were then launched, destroying the damaged enemy frigate and everything else behind them as he felt several large thuds against
Sledgehammer’s
hull and then savagely against his back as first his HUD failed and then Tux stopped responding to him. The secondary hull clamps reached out and held them tight as
Basalt
continued to accelerate, with Marko’s instruments showing that they were heading on a tangential course towards the closest Orbital, and then, totally unexpectedly, they jumped. Patrick must have been able to identify a very small LP between the Orbital and the planet and took the opportunity. Jumping that close to occupied space was strictly forbidden, and used a great deal of fuel.

A fraction of a second later they were on the other side of the planet at the larger LP by the shipyard’s moon. Their radios and receivers on all channels were going nuts from everyone watching and cheering them on. Games Board officials were calmly telling everyone that they were dangerous murderers and terrorists, but
Basalt’s
crew heard the officials being shouted down by members of the watching public, something none of them had ever heard before.

Basalt
jumped again with the first of the other frigates jumping right behind them, only two kilometres away. From Marko’s perspective, someone on the bridge of
Basalt
must have really done their calculations perfectly, for as soon as they exited the wormhole, five Compressors were launched, two of which struck the pursuing frigate as it emerged into normal space. The remaining three detonated instantly, carving huge hemispherical shapes from the frigate and leaving only a small percentage intact. It was looking like some extraordinary piece of sculpture.

Basalt
was under full power, racing for the next optimum jump point, with Marko fretting because although he had no access to his engineering boards he could still calculate the huge amount of fuel they were going through. They jumped again and this time found the other Games Board frigate waiting, with a very clear shot at them. However, it did not engage with them, and as they flew silently past at great speed, they could see why. Something had used a very powerful weapon on it and they could see on their screens that the frigate was literally hollowed out from end to end with a slowly expanding debris field behind it.

The major took the opportunity to give some orders. ‘All craft, we have a flight time of thirty-seven minutes to the next jump point. Everyone get inside, bay doors are all open.’

With that the clamps disengaged and they took their battered selves inside the hangar deck. Marko had to push Lilly with
Sledgehammer,
using manual control, as she was without power. It was not pretty, but they got back on board, and then secured their ships. Everyone’s units looked as if they had taken a real pounding and when Marko again queried Tux as to his status, he did not respond.

He had to physically pop the hatch open and climb out, then looked behind him to discover that his beautiful Hanger was riddled with holes behind the cockpit and through his seat. Tux was another casualty of this very long day. When he finally arrived at his board he could see that they were deeply in the shit. Fuel was critically low, as the tiny jumps had used a staggering amount of water fuel. They had enough for two more jumps but even that would only take them to the edge of the star system. Bringing up Harry’s board he could see that ammunition was also dramatically depleted and it would be weeks before the gardens started to supply them with food again.