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bot in an attempt to blind it or distract it, but he knew that it would only buy
him a few seconds at best.
A metal foot sent him flying through the air, his torso a mass of pain. He hit
the walkway, sending ripples along its length. The bot strode towards him:
implacable, unstoppable. Powerless Friendless couldn t raise his head from
the planks. A pseudo-limb crept up one of the cables, trying to find some
purchase, some grip with which he could pull himself up, but the plastic was
slippery with the rain, and his pseudo-digits just slid vainly along it.
The bot stopped beside him. A metal hand reached down.
The unyielding fingers closed around his eye-stalks.
Powerless Friendless could feel the pressure building up. A red haze crept
across his vision. His lymph pump was beating wildly, pumping fit to break
through the muscle sheath of his chest. He couldn t feel his pseudo-limbs or
his basal foot. He couldn t feel anything apart from the pounding of his blood,
the pressure in his head and the spikes of pain where his eye-stalks were being
dragged from their roots. He could see nothing apart from the silver face that
gazed impassively down at him.
With his last ounce of strength, Powerless Friendless lashed out with his
basal foot, kicking not against the bot but against life itself, against every
human who had ever hit him, or laughed at him, or ignored him. He felt his
foot crash against something hard, something that sent shock waves rippling
through his body. There was resistance for a moment, then there was nothing.
The pain eased miraculously, leaving a sick residue behind. The red haze
vanished.
Powerless Friendless pulled himself slowly to his foot. The bot was on the
edge of the walkway, holding onto one of the thick cables that supported
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it with one hand while the other flailed around, searching for something to
grasp. Its feet had slipped off the rain-slicked wood.
Powerless Friendless stared at it.
The bot s hand slipped a few inches down the cable.
It smiled.  Another time, it promised.
Something died within the bot s eyes. The hand spasmed open, and the bot
dropped away, like a falling statue.
The splash when it hit the canal seemed to go on for ever.
As the purple canopy of the jungle rose up to greet them, Private Enquorian
kept his eyes firmly fixed upon the kirilian scanner. A number of life-forms
were registering, but two of them were larger than the rest.
 Enquorian, report, the under-sergeant growled. The way his skull-like cy-
bernetic face reflected the orange sky made him look as if he was aflame.
 Auras are still steady, Enquorian said. The other nine Landsknechte in the
flitter were silent, but he could feel the tension as they came in to land.
 Bearing? the under-sergeant growled. Behind him, two winged reptiles
were heading for the flitter. Their heads seemed to be made almost entirely
of teeth.
 Unchanged on vector five-five-niner.
 Let me know if they move.
The reptiles exploded into balls of flesh and flame.
 Who fired? The under-sergeant s gravelly, part-synthesized voice hadn t
changed tone.
Private Kipps, his eyes shielded by his visor, spat on the muzzle of his blaster.
The spittle sizzled briefly.  Me, sir, he said. His voice burred with a Helvetillian
accent.
 You re on report.
 But sir, Kipps cried. He was known for his short temper, and his stupidity.
 I didn t authorize firing.
 But them damned reps were  
 I know. Enquorian.
 Sir.
 Stun him.
 Sir.
Before Kipps could react, Enquorian fired from the hip, catching him high
in the chest. He slumped sideways. The two men on either side slapped at
their arms to minimize the splash-over pins-and-needles effect of the stun ray.
The under-sergeant leaned across and took hold of Kipps s tunic. The metal
weave material bunched up in his hand.  Lesson one about jungle warfare,
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he growled.  are full of predators. He heaved Kipps towards the open
Jungles
hatch.  If you want to keep them off your back, use some bait.
He pushed Kipps out of the hatch. Enquorian watched the man fall. Within
moments, he had vanished into the purple canopy. A series of crashes was
curtailed as he hit the ground. The sounds of the jungle halted for a moment,
then cautiously re-established themselves.
A flock of winged shapes in the distance began to dive towards the point,
where Kipps had vanished.
 That stun was sloppy, Enquorian. Should ve switched to multiple shot.
He didn t know whether to acknowledge the advice, ask why or keep silent.
Eventually he settled on a noncommittal  Sir?
 Narrower beam than single shot. Just have to snatch your finger off the
trigger before you let loose a volley. For that, let s see you act as point for the
landing party.
The under-sergeant s cybernetic leg caught Enquorian beneath the chin,
pitching him out of the flitter. He fell towards the canopy, tumbling through
the humid air. His fingers scrabbled across his belt, looking for the repulsor
switch. Leaves slapped at his face as he dropped through the canopy of veg-
etation. He felt a branch impact in the small of his back and snap across the
body armour.
His finger brushed the repulsor stud. With a sudden jerk, he stopped falling.
After he caught his breath, he glanced around. He d never been in the
jungles of Ybarraculos Epsilon before, either for real or on Purgatory, but he d
done jungle warfare courses, and this was no different.
Kipps s body was crumpled in a heap near the bole of a nearby tree. A
couple of vines were already hanging above him, vibrating slightly. Something
like a flat worm with green and purple stripes slid down the bole, hissing, and
the vines quickly withdrew. Enquorian watched as the worm-thing dropped
the final few metres onto Kipps s head. He wondered briefly whether to fire
a shot at it to warn it off, but he could just imagine the under-sergeant s
reaction. No authorization to fire. Kipps would just have to resign himself to
an artificial face. Or head.
The canopy crunched above him as the flitter descended. He moved out of
the way, scanning the landing area for signs of trouble, descending slowly on
the repulsor beams until he was hanging a few metres above the undergrowth.
As the flitter came to rest, he noticed that the worm-thing had vanished,
taking Kipps s head with it. Poor guy. A number of small, multi-legged crea-
tures with pointed heads at both ends of their bodies were already delving
inside what remained.
Enquorian had never liked Kipps. Loudmouth. Deserved everything he got.
Nasty way to go, but weren t they all? At least he d been unconscious.
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His feet touched the dank, mossy ground moments before the flitter came
to rest.
 Trouble? The under-sergeant was the first out.
 No, sir. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]