Pain Bringer (The Constant War Book 2), page 13
“Char?!”
She poked his sides. Jabbed his kidneys. Her hands swept across his naked body, groping and grabbing. “Are you—?”
“Am I what?! Will you please stop?!”
“Are you human?”
“What?! Of course I’m human! What else could I possibly be?”
She stopped. There were no hairy alien mandibles poking from his mouth. No seams or gaps in his flesh, hiding an alien form beneath. He wasn’t puking blackened pus on her. His body was unmistakably human. Her impromptu inspection only confirmed his claim. Huffing, she glared at him. Nightmare images plagued her thoughts. With animal rage, she grunted. “Safety. I need to find safety.”
“Char, you’re safe in here.”
She slid off the bed onto her knees and rummaged through scattered clothes on the floor.
There was no safe place in this tent.
In this encampment.
On this Old God pretending to be a planet.
She desperately needed to escape its influence.
Char swiped her pressure suit off the floor and staggered to her feet. Swaying in front of a large green button, she stabbed at it repeatedly, until she managed to make contact. The airlock compressor whirred.
Did he feel it? Did the Doc feel the effects of Sindarhe too?
Did it matter?
She had to get out.
Char unzipped the airlock flap and slid into the small plastic capsule. She glared out the porthole window, making eye contact with Dr. Scott. She jabbed clear plastic with her pointer finger, and her voice became eerily calm. “Who’s crazy now, huh?”
Dr. Scott stared in disbelief. “Pardon?”
The airlock compressor gave a final rattle before cutting out. Char took the cue, unzipped the exterior flap, and exited.
Outside Dr. Scott’s tent, the night sky cast muddy blue tones across the landscape, illuminating the dusty plain, rim-lighting grey tentacle trunks and jutting triangular beak-mouthed mountains. Earth loomed high overhead, already larger in the sky than when she had first landed, constantly getting closer. The chrome glint of Heaven caught sunlight, sparkling as bright as the Christmas Star.
Dragging her feet through dust, Char stumbled past her crumpled tent. She navigated the maze of Tigerclaws on their recharging units. “It’s not safe out here,” she muttered to herself.
Not safe.
She ping-ponged off various recharging units, until she came to one mecha in particular. Unlike the other boxy flying tanks with cockpits at eye level, she stared at the metal knee joint of a slim, tall mecha with a smooth plastic finish.
The Painbringer.
The Painbringer is safe.
She grabbed the metal kneecap with both hands and hoisted herself up onto its thigh. Hugging its hydraulic quads and shimmying like a lumberjack up a tree, she lost grip of a handhold. Her right arm flailed, but she managed to support her weight with her left. She secured herself with both arms, and pulled herself onto the flat plane at the top of the Painbringer. The canopy slowly opened.
Char settled into the harness. She leaned back, feeling the inputs slide into the jacks, her senses springing to new life, becoming hyper aware.
Diagnostic screens blinked onto her canopy HUD. Scrolling lines scribbled graphs into existence. A color-coded scan of a brain appeared. Apparently, the Painbringer was concerned about her current psychological state.
But she wasn’t.
Not now.
In the Painbringer, she felt so much better.
Chapter Fifteen
Maybe it was paranoia—all the things Char had mentioned about Sindarhe and its effects preying upon Wilkins’ mind—or maybe it was simply a bad bit of MRE (like there was a good bit of MRE) rumbling around in his noggin, but whatever the reason, he couldn’t sleep.
Solar winds scattered dust, kicking up whirling devils against the side of his inflatable coffin. Every tick, every crackle, every sound of the tent settling put his nerves on end. He was certain a squiddie was behind every creak, a tentacle lying in wait inside every shadowed crevice and darkened fold.
Wilkins shut his eyes, feeling something staring back at him. But every time he opened them and checked, the tent looked exactly as it had before. His pressure suit hung neatly on the wall. The inner airlock door was zippered shut from Char’s hasty exit. The darkened splotch was nothing more than a greyed divot on white synthetic walls.
He wasn’t getting any rest in here. The harder he tried, the more awake he felt.
Grumbling, Wilkins tossed his inflatable pillow aside, grabbed an oxygen cannister from its charging station, and slotted it into the back of his pressure suit. Hoisting a strap over his shoulder, he stepped into the pressure suit and incoherently muttered to himself.
A walk would take his mind off of everything. Give him time to settle.
At least, that’s what he hoped.
He readied the airlock. When the green light illuminated accompanied by a chime, he adjusted his mask, making sure it was centerline. He climbed out of the cramped tent and stood up, a full six feet three inches. Groaning, he put his hands on his hips and arched his back. His vertebrae popped in succession, each with a unique audible crack.
It felt good to get some fresh air.
So to speak.
Recycled canistered oxygen pumped through a tube into his mask, stale coming in and acrid going down. But he was outside, enjoying a Sindarhe night.
What could he really complain about?
It was a surprisingly serene night for a planet composed of the corpse of an Old God. Especially one that often drove people crazy. Or maybe it was the stillness that made people crazy. The vast, sheer emptiness. With no atmosphere, he could stare into the night sky, gazing out into the infinity of the universe.
Maybe crazy wasn’t the right word.
Different.
It made people different. Less inhibited. Their opposite.
The surreality of the surroundings wasn’t doing much to help his sanity. Triangular mountain ranges jutted through the terrain. Earth was a blue gem floating in the sky. Heaven a bright glinting star, a beacon, a waypoint if ever he became lost.
While admiring the view, Wilkins caught sight of a silhouette moving through the dim night. Too frail to be one of the engineers. Too short for Dr. Scott.
“Hey!” Wilkins called out. “There’s a curfew.”
But the silhouette disappeared behind the mecha convoy, lost betwixt gullies created by the Tigerclaw recharging units.
Cautiously, he crept through the maze of semi-humanoid machinery standing four meters over his head. Maybe this was what happened to the engineers? Maybe Char was right? Maybe Sindarhe was playing tricks on all of their minds?
Even his.
Had the engineers started seeing apparitions? And followed them to their impending doom?
Wilkins scoffed at the notion. Maybe the engineers were weak-minded, but he’d be damned if he let some alien influence drive him nuts.
Again.
Once was more than enough, thank you very much.
Besides, why should he care what someone was doing past curfew? He too, was out, enjoying the night. The serenity. The empty vast expanse of new frontier, not yet exploited by man. The intent of a shadowy figure lurking amongst military-grade vehicles and weapons of war was none of his business.
Despite the beauty of a Sindarhe evening, he kept glancing at the narrow corridor that the figure had disappeared down. Endless questions began to burden his mind, dominating the temporary tranquility. He could let these questions go. There was always tomorrow. He could find out tomorrow.
A chill shot up his spine. He considered that maybe this was someone responsible for the disappearance of the engineers.
He shook off the notion. Of course it wasn’t. The engineers were the only two people on the entire planet when they went missing.
Supposedly.
Wilkins sighed and blindly followed the silhouette into the maze.
The figure moved out of the shadows and paused, standing in the crossroads of mecha recharging units.
Wilkins pressed himself flush against the nearest unit.
The figure never bothered to turn in his direction. After what seemed like hours, but was only a few seconds, the figure made a sharp left turn. A slash of light caught the silhouette’s face, illuminating features for a brief second.
He saw her.
“Char?” Wilkins reached out through the distance, as if he could pull her back to her senses. “What are you doing out here?”
But she hadn’t heard him. His pace quickened, trying to catch up, but when he rounded the blind corner, Char was nowhere to be seen.
Wilkins turned around, but the route he came from was no longer behind him. Instead, a wall of metal and cables blocked his path.
“What’s going on?”
How could he get lost? It was only a handful of mecha—four rows of three. But he turned again. Moved forward. Rounded a new corridor, finding another labyrinth of twists and turns. He doubled back, but every corridor looked exactly the same as the previous.
Equally as endless.
“What in the name of gravy is going on?”
The whine of jet engines cried in his ear, turbines spinning to full power.
“Char? Char is that you?” Wilkins scanned the darkness, running back and forth in a panicked frenzy, trying to escape, but only discovering dead end after dead end. “Char, what are you doing out here?”
Light blasted through the gullies between mecha, cutting harsh shadows across the terrain. Hydraulics whined as a new silhouette towered over him. Twin Xenon floodlamps spotlighted him, purple eyes glaring.
Two swarms of fireflies made from red particle energy buzzed in a circular pattern. Their glow grew in intensity, illuminating a metallic structure beneath, highlighted in angry red.
The Painbringer’s fists.
A blast of red particle energy lit up the night. Energy ripped down the corridor. The blast tumbled end over end, a high velocity buzzsaw of supercharged particles.
Wilkins dove for cover, as the energy blast splashed against the ground, tossing the earth where he had been standing.
“Char! What are you doing?!”
Instantly, he questioned his desire to leave the safety of the maintenance tunnels onboard Heaven. Questioned his reasoning for wanting to be out in the thick of things, charging headfirst into danger.
The Painbringer swiveled. Beams cut the darkness, tracking on his heel. He sprinted down the corridor, finding yet another dead end. The area around him illuminated with purple daylight as the machine found its target.
Adrenaline shot through his veins. His eyes dilated, growing accustomed to the surrounding darkness. Shapes came into focus. His nostrils flared, sucking in canned O2. In this moment that might have been his last, he felt alive.
Truly alive.
Oh, right.
It was also in this moment that he remembered why he hated being stuck onboard Heaven.
He wanted action. Needed it. Was bored without it.
But he didn’t expect his first battle after an eight-month hiatus to be fighting a fellow human being. Nor did he expect to be fighting a mecha. Especially fighting one in hand-to-hand combat—without a mecha of his own.
New experiences all around.
Though he was severely outgunned and outmatched, he couldn’t say he hated it.
As the Painbringer bore down on him, a smile crept across his face. Fumes rose off the mecha, dancing in the alien night.
“Char! It’s me! Wilkins! You know, your buddy.”
The Painbringer pivoted. Exhaust spouted from the vents wrapped around its sides like rippling rows of steel serratus. A loud shushing sound accompanied two large plates peeling back on its legs, revealing twin pulse cannons. Missile launchers snapped into place on its shoulders, partially obscuring the Xenon floodlights.
It seemed she knew exactly who he was, and had a very specific message she was intent on delivering.
Another volley of super-heated particles sprayed the corridor.
This time, Wilkins was ready.
Crouching low, he ran down a narrow alley, finding cover. If the Painbringer wanted him so badly, it was going to have to hunt him down. He wasn’t about to make things easy.
Rays of light shifted, taking shadow with it. Ground shook underfoot. The upper half of the Painbringer towered over the smaller, boxier Tigerclaws, lumbering up and down, quickly closing the distance on him.
As the Painbringer stepped into view, Wilkins realized that as much as combat made him feel alive, he needed to find some way to even the odds if he wanted to stay that way.
Safe.
It was the only way to be safe.
They were all coming for her. Chasing her. Attacking.
The Painbringer would protect her.
No one else understood.
Not Wilkins.
Not Dr. Scott.
No one.
Only the Painbringer was immune.
Electrical impulses sparked in her head, a welcome rush of activity. Char moved and the Painbringer responded. Engines ignited, and she was thrown back in her harness. Purple beams cut through the darkness as the Painbringer’s Xenon floodlights snapped into place on shoulder mounts. Yellow reticles crawled over the canopy display, chaos searching for targets, targets she was certain were closing in on her, surrounding her. Surrounding them.
But the Painbringer didn’t seem to agree.
Nothing came up on the scanners. Sonar pinged their surroundings. And the blip quietly returned, empty and devoid of life.
When sensors weren’t enough to convince her, the Painbringer flashed reams of scrolling data across the canopy.
“No. They’re here. I feel them.”
Char marched through the narrow alleys between mecha recharging units. Tigerclaws sat on their haunches, depowered and motionless. The night was still, serene, but her senses crawled.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something skitter across the nearest Tigerclaw. She searched her link with the Painbringer, hoping it would provide detailed information on the attackers quickly surrounding them in her periphery. Unfortunately, the Painbringer had no record of such movement.
As far as it was concerned, there was no one there.
Cautiously, she approached the Tigerclaw. The cockpit was empty. The glowing light of the recharging unit provided minimal illumination.
“There!” shouted Char, and opened fire on the stationary mecha. A blast of red particle energy tore through it, pushing it into its neighbor, toppling the row of recharging units like dominos.
Another flash of movement. And the Painbringer pivoted wildly, locking on to an adjacent Tigerclaw.
Only, this time, she saw it.
On top of the Tigerclaw, a single tentacle raised, like a cowlick that refused to be combed flat. It swayed, a cobra dancing to the flute of an unseen charmer, rising up from behind the machine. More tentacles surfaced, swaying to the same rhythm. They reached out, dragging a slimy body to the top of the mecha. The amorphous blob plopped down, puppy sitting, quietly looking up at her.
“No, it can’t be,” said Char. “You’re dead. We killed you.”
It started making gurgling noises. Pools of slime bubbled underneath it, trickling down the front of the mecha. It yowled, summoning hundreds of wavering tentacles from behind the machine. They latched on to the armor plating, hauling themselves up, revealing the squishy oozing flesh bodies they were attached to. Suckers left behind wet trails, as they oozed out, one on top of the other, joining the first. They balled together into an immense clump, clawing and reaching for her.
“We killed all of you!”
Char jumped back. And so did the Painbringer—looking like a house maiden afraid of a mouse.
“No!” Char screamed.
She raised her fists, swinging yellow targeting reticles into position on her canopy HUD, manually attempting to lock on to targets too numerous to count.
Only the Painbringer’s sensors still registered nothing.
She racked her brain for targeting information the Painbringer refused to give her. Heat scans showed cold blues, greens, and purples. Proximity sweeps bounced back endless rows of empty mecha. But she was looking right at them. At writhing squiddies overtaking the Tigerclaw in front of her.
She clicked her heels together, firing boot thrusters, raising the Painbringer several meters off the ground. Leaning forward, she lowered a shoulder, and the Painbringer lurched. She slammed into the Tigerclaw, scattering the gathering ball of squiddies in all directions.
Servos whirred, as the Painbringer pivoted. She aimed at the ground, about to send a barrage of superheated particles at the slimy aliens.
But they were nowhere to be seen.
They should have been right there. At her feet. In the narrow corridors. There was no place else for them to go. No place to hide.
But in the narrow alleys between Tigerclaw recharging units, it was only her and the Painbringer in the Sindarhe night. Only an endless sprawl of jutting triangular beaked-mouth mountain ranges and a felled forest of over-sized dead tentacles, spanning toward the horizon.
Earth was ever present in the night sky, casting a blue-green glow across the Sindarhe landscape. The faint glint of Heaven sparkled, like some far-off dream.
For a brief moment, she was all alone.
And then she heard it.
The skittering of feet, loud against the backdrop of vacuum.
A cockroach scurried beneath her, fleeing from the purple Xenon floodlights. She raised a foot, trying to stomp it out of existence, but the insect moved fast, even for the Painbringer.
“You! You’re responsible for all of this!”
She cornered it at the end of a narrow corridor.
The Painbringer heard it screeching. In English. Somehow, the cockroach knew her name.
“Char! It’s me! Stop!” it yelled at her.
Of course it wanted her to stop. She was so close to eradicating it. To forcefully making it stop. Making them all stop. Permanently.
