Gavin Smith - The Age of Scorpio

The habitat’s security systems granted carte blanche permission for violence. No restrictions within current capabilities.

Jide swung at Scab. Scab placed his hands on Jide’s furry head and shoulders and jumped over the feline’s muscular arm, landing just behind a surprised Jide, face to face with the lizard berserker. The berserker was swelling, internal carbon reservoirs rapidly being converted to muscle mass as natural and artificial rage and speed-enhancing chemicals flooded its body.

Scab fast-drew his tumbler pistol and shot all six rounds into Jide’s back at point-blank range. Jide’s armour and hardened flesh just about coped with the first four shots but the spinning rounds were designed to penetrate armour. The final two penetrated; secondary charges detonated inside Jide, sending the bullets spinning and fragmenting through the Rakshasa’s body.

Scab rammed his synthetic diamond-tipped smart blade metalforma knife through hardened armoured flesh and soft-machine-augmented muscle into the back of Jide’s neck, then sent the blade a neunonic command to widen and grow in the wound, the small carbon reservoir in the hilt providing the necessary matter. Scab forgot about Jide.

The twins charged. Vic’s triple-barrelled shotgun pistol appeared in the hands of his lower limbs. ’Sect knees bent in the opposite direction to the rest of the uplifted races’ knees. He bent his left leg, balancing on the right, bringing the foot up to the bottom of his abdomen. He let the twins close with him and then emptied all three barrels into the left twin’s face at point-blank range. The explosive-cored flechette penetrators turned it into a red ruin. He staggered back.

Vic’s left foot then shot out. Humans never expected kicks like this. The power-assisted prehensile claw that was his foot hit the right twin’s knee and tore through it, leaving a mangled mess of metal, hardened plastic and carbon fibre. Right twin did not scream but his leg shot out from underneath him and he face-planted into the mock marble. Vic knew that all he had done was buy himself time.

The P-sat’s cold war went hot. It turned into a strobing red shooting war as they zipped around the bridges, using them for cover while they continued screaming their electronic war across ’face connections.

Scab ducked under the blade of the berserker’s smart sickle, stepping to the side and giving his opponent the slightest push in just the right place to keep him off balance.

The half-and-half was doing a backward one-handed cartwheel, the other hand throwing explosive burrowing knives. Keyed to Scab’s EM signature, the knives’ guidance systems would take them round the lizard berserker.

Above them, one of the twins’ P-sat’s energy dissipation grids was overwhelmed. It glowed red and then exploded.

Jide just stood still.

An electronic warfare burst from Scab’s P-sat jammed the burrowing knives thrown by the half-and-half, and Scab ducked under them as the berserker turned back towards him.

Scab dropped the tumbler pistol and raised his right arm. Razor-sharp discs flew from the lizard-made disc projector strapped to his arm. Like the knives, the discs were keyed to their target’s EM signature.

As the discs opened up the tumbling half-and-half’s face and side, Scab drew his spit gun with his left hand, the gun’s ergonomic grip moulding to the contours of his hand. He jammed it into the side of the berserker’s head and with a thought started firing. The weapon’s solid-state bullpup magazine was eaten up, disappearing into the weapon’s barrel quickly, used up by the spit gun’s ferocious rate of fire. The flechette penetrators buried themselves inside the berserker’s skull, the envenomed needles fragmenting. The berserker howled and grabbed the back of his head. It would give Scab moments, but that was all.

Vic’s lower right hand flicked the triple-barrelled shotgun open. His lower left hand snatched the lizard-made power disc from its clip in the small of his back and threw it in a wide arc, transmitting target data from both himself and his P-sat. His lower left hand then slid three rounds into the shotgun. As he did this, he leaned forward and used power-assisted metal to dig his two upper arms into right twin’s flesh.

Right twin screamed as bladed fingers pushed through armour and into flesh. Vic straightened up and threw his opponent into the air. Then the bloodied hands on his upper limbs drew both his double-barrelled laser pistols. With rapid disciplined thoughts he neunonically transmitted orders to fire to the semi-automatic pistols. Right twin’s energy dissipation grid lit up, turning him into a red neon silhouette flying through the air.

Vic’s energy dissipation grid lit up as he started taking fire from one of the P-sats. Keeping one pistol on the twin, he moved the other to fire at the P-sat.

Despite his ruined face, left twin was trying to bring a short-barrelled disc gun to bear. Vic’s lower right hand snapped the shotgun pistol closed. His abdomen rotated slightly for a better shot and he fired. The three rounds left the barrels of the shotgun pistol. The sabots fell away and the miniature ramjets on the micro-missiles ignited.

Left twin got off a wild shot from the disc gun. A few of the discs hit Vic’s arm – he felt them beat armour and damage flesh and internal components. The force spun him round.

The micro-missiles from Vic’s shotgun caught left twin in the chest. Their armour-piercing heads penetrated the man-plus’s armour. The glow of their jet engines momentarily illuminated his chest cavity before exploding. It was little more than wet meat and muscle enhancement that fell to the cold hard marble.

Scab’s metalforma blade had widened enough to sever the Rakshasa’s neck and Jide’s head fell off. Scab reached behind him and caught the falling metalforma blade as it was retracting back to its normal size. The feline’s head bounced off the marble as the body toppled forward.

Scab backed away, trying to keep the wounded and angry berserker between him and the half-and-half. The berserker’s smart sickles flew out at him, the black blades moving like liquid as they reached for his flesh to cut him open. The lizard’s attacks were half overwhelming ferocity and half hard-wired randomised routines designed to make it difficult for opponents to predict them. The lizard was shredding Scab’s coat; blood had been drawn and dripped, smoking, to the cold marble. Scab drove the metalforma blade up into one of the lizard’s arms and then the other. Each time he neunonically instructed the blade to branch out to cause the maximum amount of damage, to render the limb useless. The berserker didn’t feel it. The half-and-half continued trying to circle around behind Scab.

While fighting for his life, Scab reviewed the sensor data from his P-sat. Through the fog of electronic warfare and the red glow of a rapidly overheating energy dissipation grid, it provided him with the wider picture he needed.

There was an explosion in the laser red light show above them. Vic swore as his P-sat exploded. He was firing up into the air at two of the remaining P-sats. Both were returning fire, making the ’sect’s energy dissipation grid glow bright red. Right twin was sitting up again, but Vic was pretty sure his power disc would take care of him. Then his disc changed direction.

Scab hacked the disc and gave it a new target. The flowing black blades of the berserker’s smart sickles opened him up, biting deep. Pain was just another sensation, Scab thought, one that he would have liked to be able to embrace. Getting badly cut doing it, Scab stabbed the metalforma blades up through the berserker’s reptilian maw, the blade branched out, growing inside the berserker’s flesh, hooking into it. Then Scab yanked the blade out, tearing a hole in the flesh of its maw. The berserker didn’t even feel it.