Read Online The Garbage Chronicles by Brian Herbert - Free Book Online Page A

ahead, its bloodshot eyes vacuous and long dead. Curiously, the open wounds did not drip blood.
    Javik emptied his gun into the creature. But it continued to advance, slowly and inexorably. He looked for another clip. “Shoot it, Evans!” he shouted. “Hurry!”
    Before Evans could take aim, the creature was lunging for Javik. Javik repelled it with a swift karate kick to the torso, causing the assailant to fall back on the deck. Slowly, however, the creature sat up and rose to its feet.
    Without warning, Wizzy glowed bright orange and flashed across the cabin, slamming into the tattered humanoid. This had more effect than all of Javik’s firepower, for the creature slipped and tried to go the other way. Its purple badge clattered to the deck. Cringing at the sight of Wizzy, the creature tried to get away.
    Wizzy attacked again.
    The creature fell over itself trying to escape. It crawled aft, in full and terrified retreat.
    “Over here!” Evans said. “I’ll open the hatch!”
    Wizzy forced the intruder into Blanquie’s sleeping compartment. “I’m going in too!” Wizzy announced. “Close the hatch after me!”
    “Right!” Evans said.
    “He’s afraid of me!” Wizzy said, pausing at the open hatch and displaying obvious pride. “Probably a primordial fear of comets.”
    “Who cares why!” Javik said, shaking his head. “Just do it!”
    “You don’t care to understand these things?” Wizzy asked, surprised. “With so much to learn, you would bury your head in the sand?”
    “This is no time for philosophy!” Javik snapped.
    “Fleshcarriers!” Wizzy huffed. Haughtily, he flew into the compartment.
    Evans slammed the hatch shut.
    Now there was a ferocious commotion below decks. Javik felt the ship shake and heard shattering glassplex, probably from the compartment’s mirrors. Wizzy squealed down there, with all the zeal of an attacking samu-rani warrior.
    “He’s doing it!” Evans reported, looking along the side of the ship with a prismatic porthole. Creatures poured from the broken porthole of Blanquie’s compartment, tumbling in the vacuum of space. Gradually they regained their equilibriums and made their way back to the ship, half swimming, half walking on air.
    “Good work, Wizzy!” Javik said.
    Evans screamed.
    Javik hurried to the porthole with her and saw the reason:. Outside, the bloody and battered corpse of Vince Blanquie tumbled in freefall. Then it began to move, swimmingly and dreamlike with its humanoid brethren.
    “Blanquie’s one of them,” Javik said. A chill cut through his shoulder blades.
    “Open up!” Wizzy squealed from below decks.
    Evans lifted the hatch, allowing Wizzy back in. Then she reseated it.
    Wizzy hovered breathlessly in midair. “A. ..burst . . . of strength,” he said proudly.
    “Not a minute too early,” Javik said. “Say, you sound done in.” He opened his palm, and Wizzy landed there.
    Wizzy breathed rapidly. “I fused a cover . . . over the porthole,” he said. “Using titanium . . . from the compartment deck.”
    Javik felt him breathing, expanding and contracting like any human. “Good,” Javik said. “Now I have one more assignment for you.”
    “Name it,” Wizzy said, full of himself.
    “The exhaust tubes. Can you clear them?”
    “Just command it.”
    “I command it,” Javik said. He tossed Wizzy in the air.
    Wizzy clunked ungracefully to the floor. “Hey!” he yelled, surprised. “Give me a moment to get my stuff together!”
    “Sorry,” Javik said.
    Presently, Wizzy entered an airlock on the starboard side of the Amanda Marie, Within seconds, he darted into space.
    The creatures continued to pummel the ship.
    Javik took his command chair and mento-held on the ship’s starter button. With the mento transmission, a sharp pain returned to the back of his skull. Releasing the mento hold, Javik swore and slammed down the black start toggle.
    Moments later, he felt the ship rumble as twin ion engines roared to life. He