Read Online Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse by Stephen King, George R. R. Martin, Cory Doctorow - Free Book Online Page B
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hands through the broken scree as we screamed over it.
Alarms yowled. Jaak shut them off as Lisa pushed the hunter lower. Ahead, a tailings ridge loomed. We ripped up its face and dropped sickeningly into the next valley. The Hentasas shuddered as Lisa forced them to the edge of their design buffer. We hurtled up and over another ridge. Ahead, the ragged cutscape of mined mountains stretched to the horizon. We dipped again into mist and skimmed low over another catchment lake, leaving choppy wake in the thick golden waters.
Jaak studied the hunter's scanners. "I've got it." He grinned. "It's moving, but slow."
"Contact in one minute," Lisa said. "He hasn't launched any countermeasures."
I watched the intruder on the tracking screens as they displayed real-time data fed to us from SesCo's satellites. "It's not even a masked target. We could have dropped a mini on it from base if we'd known he wasn't going to play hide-and-seek."
"Could have finished your game," Lisa said.
"We could still nuke him," Jaak suggested.
I shook my head. "No, let's take a look. Vaporizing him won't leave us anything and Bunbaum will want to know what we used the hunter for." "Thirty seconds."
"He wouldn't care, if someone hadn't taken the hunter on a joyride to Can-cun.
Lisa shrugged. "I wanted to swim. It was either that, or rip off your kneecaps." The hunter lunged over another series of ridges.
Jaak studied his monitor. "Target's moving away. He's still slow. We'll get him." "Fifteen seconds to drop," Lisa said. She unstrapped and switched the hunter to software. We all ran for the hatch as the HEV yanked itself skyward, its auto pilot desperate to tear away from the screaming hazard of the rocks beneath its belly
We plunged out the hatch, one, two, three, falling like Icarus. We slammed into the ground at hundreds of kilometres per hour. Our exoskeletons shattered like glass, flinging leaves into the sky. The shards fluttered down around us, black metallic petals absorbing our enemy's radar and heat detection while we rolled to jarred vulnerable stops in muddy scree.
The hunter blew over the ridge, Hentasas shrieking, a blazing target. I dragged myself upright and ran for the ridge, my feet churning through yellow tailings mud and rags of jaundiced snow. Behind me, Jaak was down with smashed arms. The leaves of his exoskeleton marked his roll path, a long trail of black shimmering metal. Lisa lay a hundred yards away, her femur rammed through her thigh like a bright white exclamation mark.
I reached the top of the ridge and stared down into the valley.
Nothing.
I dialed up the magnification of my helmet. The monotonous slopes of more tailings rubble spread out below me. Boulders, some as large as our HEV, some cracked and shattered by high explosives, shared the slopes with the unstable yellow shale and fine grit of waste materials from SesCo's operations.
Jaak slipped up beside me, followed a moment later by Lisa, her flight suit's leg torn and bloodied. She wiped yellow mud off her face and ate it as she studied the valley below. "Anything?"
I shook my head. "Nothing yet. You okay?"
"Clean break."
Jaak pointed. "There!"
Down in the valley, something was running, flushed by the hunter. It slipped along a shallow creek, viscous with tailings acid. The ship herded it toward us. Nothing. No missile fire. No slag. Just the running creature. A mass of tangled hair. Quadrupedal. Splattered with mud.
"Some kind of bio-job?" I wondered.
"It doesn't have any hands," Lisa murmured.
"No equipment either."
Jaak muttered. "What kind of sick bastard makes a bio-job without hands?" I searched the nearby ridgelines. "Decoy, maybe?"
Jaak checked his scanner data, piped in from the hunter's more aggressive instruments. "I don't think so. Can we put the hunter up higher? I want to look around."
At Lisa's command, the hunter rose, allowing its sensors a fuller reach. The howl of its turbofans became muted as it gained altitude.
Jaak waited
Alarms yowled. Jaak shut them off as Lisa pushed the hunter lower. Ahead, a tailings ridge loomed. We ripped up its face and dropped sickeningly into the next valley. The Hentasas shuddered as Lisa forced them to the edge of their design buffer. We hurtled up and over another ridge. Ahead, the ragged cutscape of mined mountains stretched to the horizon. We dipped again into mist and skimmed low over another catchment lake, leaving choppy wake in the thick golden waters.
Jaak studied the hunter's scanners. "I've got it." He grinned. "It's moving, but slow."
"Contact in one minute," Lisa said. "He hasn't launched any countermeasures."
I watched the intruder on the tracking screens as they displayed real-time data fed to us from SesCo's satellites. "It's not even a masked target. We could have dropped a mini on it from base if we'd known he wasn't going to play hide-and-seek."
"Could have finished your game," Lisa said.
"We could still nuke him," Jaak suggested.
I shook my head. "No, let's take a look. Vaporizing him won't leave us anything and Bunbaum will want to know what we used the hunter for." "Thirty seconds."
"He wouldn't care, if someone hadn't taken the hunter on a joyride to Can-cun.
Lisa shrugged. "I wanted to swim. It was either that, or rip off your kneecaps." The hunter lunged over another series of ridges.
Jaak studied his monitor. "Target's moving away. He's still slow. We'll get him." "Fifteen seconds to drop," Lisa said. She unstrapped and switched the hunter to software. We all ran for the hatch as the HEV yanked itself skyward, its auto pilot desperate to tear away from the screaming hazard of the rocks beneath its belly
We plunged out the hatch, one, two, three, falling like Icarus. We slammed into the ground at hundreds of kilometres per hour. Our exoskeletons shattered like glass, flinging leaves into the sky. The shards fluttered down around us, black metallic petals absorbing our enemy's radar and heat detection while we rolled to jarred vulnerable stops in muddy scree.
The hunter blew over the ridge, Hentasas shrieking, a blazing target. I dragged myself upright and ran for the ridge, my feet churning through yellow tailings mud and rags of jaundiced snow. Behind me, Jaak was down with smashed arms. The leaves of his exoskeleton marked his roll path, a long trail of black shimmering metal. Lisa lay a hundred yards away, her femur rammed through her thigh like a bright white exclamation mark.
I reached the top of the ridge and stared down into the valley.
Nothing.
I dialed up the magnification of my helmet. The monotonous slopes of more tailings rubble spread out below me. Boulders, some as large as our HEV, some cracked and shattered by high explosives, shared the slopes with the unstable yellow shale and fine grit of waste materials from SesCo's operations.
Jaak slipped up beside me, followed a moment later by Lisa, her flight suit's leg torn and bloodied. She wiped yellow mud off her face and ate it as she studied the valley below. "Anything?"
I shook my head. "Nothing yet. You okay?"
"Clean break."
Jaak pointed. "There!"
Down in the valley, something was running, flushed by the hunter. It slipped along a shallow creek, viscous with tailings acid. The ship herded it toward us. Nothing. No missile fire. No slag. Just the running creature. A mass of tangled hair. Quadrupedal. Splattered with mud.
"Some kind of bio-job?" I wondered.
"It doesn't have any hands," Lisa murmured.
"No equipment either."
Jaak muttered. "What kind of sick bastard makes a bio-job without hands?" I searched the nearby ridgelines. "Decoy, maybe?"
Jaak checked his scanner data, piped in from the hunter's more aggressive instruments. "I don't think so. Can we put the hunter up higher? I want to look around."
At Lisa's command, the hunter rose, allowing its sensors a fuller reach. The howl of its turbofans became muted as it gained altitude.
Jaak waited
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