Neal Asher - The Engineer Reconditioned

“Let’s move it,” she said. “We’ve only half an hour to get clear of the shuttle. That other craft is nearly here.”

Abaron pulled his visor down and popped the inner door. He took up both packs and handed one to Chapra. He noted the singun hung on her utility belt. He went first into the lock, and remembering those monsters they had seen in the sea, pulled a short range cutting laser from his pack and held it ready as he opened the outer door.

Nothing immediately attacked. The shuttle was up on a beach of red sand scattered with nautiloid shells up to a metre across, into the cover of which scurried thumb-sized lobster things as soon as he stepped out. Two steps from the lock he looked out to sea at the swarm of atolls and saw the heave and glistening backs of great beasts swimming between them. Inland towered trees the size of redwoods, but with globular blue objects on their branches rather than needles. Jammed between these giants was a tangle of life that on Earth would have consisted of smaller trees, bushes, and vines. The only resemblance these growths bore to such was that they filled the same niche. It seemed a frightening place to negotiate and a perfect place to hide. Abaron wondered what creatures were making the racket of groans and shrieks issuing from there. Soon Jane and Chapra joined him. Chapra led the way into the hot shadows under the trees. There she drew the singun and aimed it at something on the ground. Abaron stepped forward in time to see a giant leech heaving itself out of her way. Half an hour into the tangle Abaron was thoroughly grateful for his suit’s impenetrable fabric and the hard chainglass visor. There were insectile horrors here: blood-suckers and flesh eaters with all their cutlery in their mouths. Beetles as big as hiking boots landed on him and immediately tried to bite him. His chest ached where a wingless mosquito-thing the size of a cat leapt up and tried to ram into him probosces like the barrels of a shotgun. That thing he cut away with the laser before it broke his ribs. Chapra twice used the singun on things charging out at them with intent that did not seem joyous greeting. They bore appearance of Rottweilers crossed with hornets, before the singularity converted them to sludge. The expected danger revealed itself to them when they had been travelling for an hour. The explosion was loud and brief, and it silenced the jungle racket for a few minutes.

“The shuttle,” said Chapra.

“Will they come after us?” asked Abaron, then he fell silent at the sound of boosters overhead. The three of them stood waiting. They could see nothing through the foliage. Nearby an actinic flash then blast was followed by the monolithic fall of a great tree.

“Can they detect us?” asked Abaron.

“Only if our suits leak, and then it won’t matter to us.”

“Suits?”

“They could use infrared and maybe pick up cold spots, even then…” Chapra gestured up at the thick foliage.

The next explosion was close. A lightning flash, and a hand of force knocked Abaron stumbling. It hurled Jane to the ground and knocked Chapra against a tree.

“Oh shit! Run!” shouted Chapra, and she led the way to the right.

“I thought you said they can’t detect us!” yelled Abaron.

“The gun!” Chapra yelled back. “Both those explosions were where I shot those things! It uses an underspace tech to open the singularity! That’s what they’re picking up!” Another explosion behind, this time in a straight line from the last two. Gasping, they eventually stumbled to a halt, and rested at the base of one of the forest giants. When they moved on again it was to the distant and repeated sound of explosions and a loud sawing sound that Chapra identified as a particle beam fired in atmosphere. Shortly after that, sparks and smoke boiled out of the jungle, driving out swarms of creatures. The three had to flee as well — back towards the shore. One look at the white fire consuming the trees was enough to tell them their suits would never survive it. Near the beach, attacking hornet-dogs forced Chapra to use the singun again. Immediately lasers droned in the air and turned the dog-things into exploding ash.

“Stay exactly where you are! You have been targeted!”

The ship slid above them. It was an old-style AG gunship but no less effective for that. Chapra stood with the singun at her side. Abaron waited for her to raise it and for the three of them to die.

“Throw the weapon to your right!”

The ground suddenly boiled in front of Chapra. She threw the singun to her right. The gunship came down on the beach, its gun turrets locked on them every moment. Abruptly Jane screamed. Abaron turned, thinking she had been fired on, saw she had pulled off her visor and hood and ripped open the front of her suit. She was staggering away. Her face and chest were bright red. She screamed again and fell to the ground. Abaron and Chapra exchanged a look, then looked back at the gunship as its hatch popped and four people came out carrying pulsed-energy assault rifles.

“Move forward,” one of them said, then, “You, drop the laser cutter!” Abaron let go of the thing as if it was hot. He had forgotten he was holding it. He and Chapra moved forward as instructed.

“Right, lay face down with your arms and legs spread.”

They did as instructed. Abaron heard one of them move over to Jane.

“She’s dead, sir. No pulse.”

“What the hell did she do that for? She’s just a girl.”

Dead, thought Abaron, no, she had probably just turned her heart off for a moment.

“What’ll we do with her, sir?”

“Just leave hen Find the weapon, it was an EC singun.” Abaron heard the greed in that voice. Of course the Separatists would be very glad to get their hands on that kind of weapons technology. He lay there staring at one of the thumb-lobsters as it checked out his visor with its feelers. He wondered if they would be killed here on the beach or if they were to be questioned first. “I can’t find it, sir.”

“Then try harder you — what the fuck is that!” There was a brief yell cut off by a sucking explosion. Abaron heard the sound of something moving in the sea and thought about monsters. There were two more screams and they carried on; dreadful panicked screaming. Abaron pushed himself to his feet shortly before Chapra. The beach was alive with movement. Worms coiled in the sand and leapt serpent fast. One their captors staggered past, blood pouring from holes in his environment suit, other worms flicking away from him, others attaching. Abaron well knew what kind of worms could penetrate an environment suit. Another sucking explosion and a man disappeared and reappeared as a rain of organic slurry. Stuttering white fire from an assault rifle. Abaron turned and saw Jane cut in half at the waist. She fell away from her hips and legs, face-down in the sand, then calmly propped herself up with one arm and fired twice more. Of the four Separatists little remained but spreading stains on the sand; organic slurry that excited the thumb lobsters. Abaron grabbed up the laser cutter and ran for the craft, expecting to be cut down at any moment. Some of the worms hit him but did not bite. Inside the craft were two more Separatists. Shock and blood loss from hundreds of coin-sized holes the worms had punched into their bodies, had very quickly killed them. What remained of them hardly looked human. Outside the gunship Abaron leant against the hull and tried very hard not to be sick in his suit. After a moment he looked to the sea and saw the Jain resting in the shallows, worm-things swarming in the water all around it. Beyond it, partially concealed by the reflection off the surface, Abaron could see a shell-mouth a couple of metres wide, at the end of a tube disappearing into the depths. He could not really grasp what that meant; couldn’t make any sense of it.