TEXT: BattleCorps
  MONSTER
  Jason Schmetzer
  
  BattleCorps
  Monster • Page 
  Nadir Jump Point 
  New Canton 
  Word of Blake Protectorate 
  12 March, 3068
  The battle had ended in silence.
  He’d stood anchored at the port in the ’Mech bay the entire time, 
  looking through the small–barely twenty centimeter–glass as the 
  DropShips and fighters swirled through space. For the first time 
  he understood what the Master had spoken about. He saw the 
  cleansing of the glorious battle. The silent explosions. The daz-
  zling particle streamers. The DropShip shook from time to time, 
  but he was not worried. Surely the divine servants of Blake’s Will 
  could not be defeated by rabble.
  And then the DropShip shuddered, and there was a fleeting, bril-
  liant flash of light through the porthole, and then silence.
  That had been four days earlier.
  The last man had died a day after that. One of the BattleMech 
  technicians, in the bay with him. Shrapnel had torn his throat out 
  when the motor of an overworked scrubber exploded and de-
  stroyed its housing. They were all dead now, the crew and the 
  passengers.
  Except him.
  * * *
  The shuttle’s hull shuddered as it made contact with the Leopard’s 
  skin. After a few tedious moments, the S-7’s crew chief stepped 
  away from the hatch and motioned to the infantryman. “There’s 
  atmosphere,” he said, indicating a bank of green and orange lights 
  on the airlock console. “It’s dirty, and cold, but you can breathe 
  it.”
  Marine Sergeant Oswald–Oz–Stearns nodded and turned back to 
  his squad. The six other marines were outfitted much the same as 
  he was: gray-black fatigues, combat harness, and the thick-bodied 
  tanks of respirators strapped to their backs. Each of them looked 
  at him with the same intense stare. They’d been training for this 
  since the Light Horse left Ziliang.
  
  BattleCorps
  Monster • Page 
  “Rules of engagement are defensive,” Oz said. “The Major wants 
  this one intact.”
  “Then maybe the Major should come and collect it,” Haney said. 
  He racked the charging handle on his Blazer. “Somebody comes 
  at me, I’m burning them down.”
  Oz smiled. “Good. That’s the rules. If they move on you, burn 
  ‘em.” The whole team carried lasers, although they had slug-
  throwers for sidearms. “It’s a Word of Blake ship.” He checked the 
  charge on his Intek. “No chances.”
  The shuttle’s crew chief slid the hatch open. The outer airlock 
  door immediately frosted over as the chilled metal drew moisture 
  from the shuttle’s air. Oz tested the action on his sling and nodded 
  to the chief. His sights were leveled at the star-and-broadsword 
  emblem painted on the door. The chief hefted a flat-headed ham-
  mer and knocked twice against the door. After a moment, he did 
  it again.
  “At least they know we’re coming now,” Haney muttered.
  “Damp it,” Oz said. “So far this is a rescue op.” He whetted his 
  upper lip and nodded again to the chief. “Open it.” He checked 
  the stickiness of his magnetic boots, raising one foot, and then 
  the other. Just right. He’d be able to move almost like normal, de-
  spite the lack of gravity. It wasn’t a natural movement—raw zero-g 
  grunts learned about muscles they’d never used in their lives—but 
  training made it second nature. 
  The squad rushed into the Leopard’s small airlock, weapons lev-
  eled. The shuttle crew closed the hatches behind them, but they 
  had orders to stay docked in case the squad needed to evacuate 
  in a hurry. A red touchpad on the inner airlock console changed 
  to green as soon as the seals hissed shut behind them. Oz waited 
  a heartbeat, then reached over and pushed it. The inner door slid 
  to the side.
  Thick, smoke-filled air filled the small room. Oz’s nose twitched 
  before he could get his mouth open. He fought down a sneeze and 
  the urge to bring the mask of his respirator around from where it 
  hung down his neck. Two steps put him in the corridor outside the 
  airlock. He turned left and went to one knee, rifle leveled. He felt 
  Haney crouch behind him. The others would be facing the other 
  way, with Grossman watching the rear.
  “Clear left,” Oz said.
  
  BattleCorps
  Monster • Page 
  “Clear right,” Benitez said.
  Oz let his arms slacken. The Intek still pointed down the corridor, 
  but he was concentrating on other things. He closed his eyes and 
  breathed in deeply through his nose. Smoke tickled the back of his 
  throat and clogged his sinuses, but he found something else.
  “Piss,” he murmured. “And blood. Old blood.”
  Haney took two steps forward, shining the light attached to his 
  Blazer at the floor. “A deader,” he said.  Oz stepped closer and 
  knelt again. The woman was wearing gray Blakist fatigues. She’d 
  been killed by something smashing the upper half of her head 
  away. Oz looked up and around. There were panels and protru-
  sions all over the ceiling. Damage, then.
  “You think they’re all gone?” Haney asked.
  “I hope so,” Oz said. He stood away from the body and turned 
  his back on it. “Otherwise they should have policed the bodies.” 
  He kicked a bit of detritus with his boot, watching it float down the 
  corridor.
  “Should we start our sweep, then?” Grossman asked.
  Somewhere in the dead ship, a hatch clanged shut. The ringing 
  sound raced down the corridor and echoed in small spaces. Oz 
  spun and knelt, presenting his rifle. The thin glaze of smoke in 
  the air swirled in random patterns, pushed about by the squad’s 
  movements.
  “Just a door,” Haney whispered.
  “Yeah,” Oz whispered back. He made a circle with right hand and 
  then pointed forward. “But who closed it?” He took a step forward, 
  into the darkness.
  * * *
  Someone was aboard.
  He felt the vibrations in the deck, two sets of two. He pushed 
  off the cargo bin he’d been crouched against and moved into the 
  corridor. It was the starboard airlock, then. He’d been watching 
  the port side. The pain in his head and chest made him wince with 
  each step, but that was old pain, familiar pain. It was his reminder 
  of his devotion to the Master.
  
  BattleCorps
  Monster • Page 
  Could it be rescue? he wondered. What if it’s not?
  At the end of his right arm, something clicked.
  * * *
  “What’s this at the end of this corridor?” Oz whispered.
  “Cargo bays.” Haney had a small noteputer out. Deck plans for 
  the Leopard-class DropShip glowed at him from its tiny screen. 
  “Unless they’ve been modified. And then ’Mech bays after that.” 
  He toggled the ‘puter’s screen off and stuffed it back into a pock-
  et.
  “Slow and easy,” Oz said.
  The clank of metal against metal sounded ahead of them. It was 
  a different noise from the previous one. Haney moved to the oppo-
  site side of the corridor and knelt. His head was canted to the side, 
  looking down the twin barrels of his Blazer. Oz did the same on his 
  side. Behind them, he knew, Grossman and the others would be 
  watching the other direction.
  “Show yourself!” Oz called. “This is Sergeant Stearns, Fourth 
  Marines.” He ignored the irritated look from Haney. Defensive 
  SOP, he told himself. “You won’t get another warning!”
  A flicker of movement caught Oz’s eye, down near the deck on 
  the inside corner. A flash of reflected light, cut darkly by the smoke, 
  but visible nonetheless. He trained his Intek, his finger taking up 
  half the familiar draw on the trigger.
  “It’s a panel,” Haney said.
  Oz squinted. It was a meter-square and bent on one side. 
  Innumerable twins of its covered the bulkheads. Oz watched it 
  bounce gently from the floor, ringing loudly in the dead silence, 
  before continuing on its ballistic course.
  “Shit,” Oz whispered.
  “It’s a long time to be alone in the cold,” Grossman said. “I think 
  they’re all gone.”
  Oz grunted, still watching the panel. “It’s a long time to still be 
  bouncing around,” he murmured.
  
  BattleCorps
  Monster • Page 
  * * *
  Unbelievers. Infidels, animals uninitiated to the Master’s de-
  signs and the wondrous new course of humanity under the Word 
  of Blake’s protection.
  Frails.
  He moved forward slowly, relays in his mind clicking closed. His 
  right arm came up, with only the tip around the corner.  He closed 
  his eyes and, ignoring the slashing pain, looked through his fin-
  gertip. A half-dozen or so. A squad, then. He smiled. The boarders 
  had sent only a squad.
  The fools.
  * * *
  “We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover,” Oz said, putting on a 
  stern expression in the face of so many grinning troopers. “Let’s 
  keep it cool.”
  “The walls coming for you, Sarge?” Grossman asked. He looked 
  at the other marines, pointing. “Look—” he began.
  His chest exploded.
  “DOWN!” Oz called, using his knees to drop his body closer to 
  the deck. The autorifle that’d killed Grossman kept up a steady bar-
  rage, its muzzle flashes lighting the corridor like a strobe light. Oz 
  twisted backward, trying to get the Intek around. The sling caught 
  on his elbow, jerking the barrel out of line.
  Benitez screamed as bullets tugged at her arm, but only for a 
  short while. The stream of slugs tore through her throat and si-
  lenced her forever. The force of the hits was enough to sever her 
  head, sending it upward to bounce from the ceiling in a welter of 
  gore.
  “Shoot, damn it!” Haney called. His Blazer pulsed, strobing ruby 
  light across Oz’s vision. Afterimages shimmered behind his eye-
  lids when he blinked, and his nostrils flared as ozone tickled his 
  sinuses. He tasted it on the back of his tongue and the roof of his 
  mouth. He swallowed hard and triggered the Intek. Like Haney’s, 
  his pulse splashed molten metal from the bulkhead panels with-
  out hitting their assailant. The autorifle stopped firing. Oz twisted 
  
  BattleCorps
  Monster • Page 
  his head, trying to see around the lip of his helmet. He saw the 
  amber-colored ring of the rifle’s barrel where the firing had heated 
  it, but it slipped away down the corridor junction.
  “Report!” Oz shouted. He tore his left boot loose from the deck 
  and brought himself around so that he was lying on his stomach 
  on the deck.  The Intek’s charge light flashed green, but he held his 
  fire. There was nothing to shoot at.
  “Grossman and Benitez are gone,” Platt said. “No one else hit.”
  “No target,” Haney said. He was crouched along the outside 
  curve of the corridor, Blazer leveled. He hadn’t moved since the 
  first burst of fire.
  “What’d you see?” Oz said. He didn’t look toward the corpses of 
  two of his troopers. There’d be time for that later. Or there wouldn’t. 
  Either way, he didn’t need to see it. The sound of Grossman’s left 
  boot clanging against the deck was enough as the nerves in his 
  body fired aimlessly.
  “One shooter,” Haney said.
  “No one behind us,” Platt said. “Just the one.”
  “That don’t mean there aren’t more,” Haney snapped.
  “It doesn’t mean there are, either,” Oz said. He took a deep breath. 
  “Let’s go get him.”
  As one the squad lurched to their feet and shuffled toward the 
  junction, crowding around it. The clanking of their magnetic boots 
  echoed in the corridor. Behind them, Grossman’s foot stopped.
  The silence called out from the darkness.
  “Boots off,” Oz whispered. “Play time’s over.”
  * * *
  Two killed, he thought.
  The flesh around his gun was seared, but that was pain he was 
  used to. The nerves in his arm raged at him, rebelliously firing at 
  random. The muscles twitched in uncontrollable tics, but he man-
  aged to get the magazine seated beneath his elbow. The sound of 
  magnetic boots clumping against the deckplates echoed in the air. 
  He smiled through the pain.
  
  BattleCorps
  Monster • Page 
  Fools.
  * * *
  Oz pointed at the ceiling. Platt slung his rifle and slithered up 
  the wall, using his hands and stocking feet to hold himself steady. 
  Looking like a great black bat hanging from there, Platt reached to 
  his harness and pulled free a fat cylinder. He armed the grenade 
  with a twist and lobbed it around the junction. The motion spun 
  him half around, but his grip on the light fixture held him in place.
  Oz closed his eyes, opened his mouth, and ducked his right ear 
  to his armored shoulder. The flash-bang erupted in dazzling bril-
  liance and a crack that shook the deck. He threw himself around 
  the corner in one motion, leading with the Intek. The others fol-
  lowed suit. His eyes found a target. A single man.
  A huge man.
  With a gun for an arm.
  Oz squeezed the trigger. The Intek skewered the man in the chest, 
  the red beam splashing flesh and blood to steam in an instant. The 
  man roared, throwing his arms up. Oz grinned, opened his mouth 
  to order the others to watch him.
  The man pushed himself upright, off the deck, and stabbed his 
  gun-arm toward the marines.
  “Jesus Christ,” was all Oz had time to say.
  Bracing himself on the remains of a hatch, the giant fired, rip-
  ping a stream of bullets past the marines to ricochet and splatter 
  against the bulkhead. Platt screamed, but Oz didn’t have time to 
  look. He grabbed Haney’s harness and pushed backward with 
  his legs, drawing him out of the line of fire. Haney held his finger 
  down on the trigger, but the Blazer pulse splashed molten metal 
  from the bulkheads instead of the giant.
  “Jesus Christ,” Oz whispered again.
  Platt screamed again as his chest erupted in angry red flow-
  ers of blood. His arm twisted in a spasm, jerking his rifle loose. It 
  bounced from the bulkhead ten centimeters from Oz’s head.
  “What was that?” Haney asked. His finger twitched convulsive-
  ly on the trigger, but the power pack was exhausted. The empty 
  
  BattleCorps
  Monster • Page 
  rifle beeped uselessly. Oz watched as he looked down, frowned, 
  and then ejected the magazines. The familiar motion seemed to 
  ground him. “I mean, shit, Oz,” he said. “What the hell was that 
  thing?”
  “A man,” Oz said. He changed power packs on his own rifle and 
  shuffled to his knees. “Just a big man.”
  “Bullshit,” Haney said. “I saw you hit him. Hard, right in the chest. 
  Center mass.” He aped Oz’s posture, pointing his Blazer. “It’s a 
  zombie. Some kind of Blakist zombie.”
  Oz frowned, but didn’t speak. He heard a sound.
  * * *
  He hurt.
  His left hand clutched at the tatters of gnarled flesh on his chest. 
  The nerves were long gone, having died screaming beneath the la-
  ser’s caress. They left the angry memories of their deaths seared 
  into his brain. Synapses protested, but his mind was used to pain. 
  His fingernails tapped against the ceramic laminae replacing his 
  sternum. His right arm ached.
  The flesh around the gun muzzle was seared and smoking, but 
  he couldn’t feel the pain. His mind was screaming. His heart was 
  screaming. He pushed off from the wall, brought himself upright. 
  A click disengaged his boots. Two steps put his feet against the 
  wall behind him. The gun was loaded.
  He shoved, sending himself down the corridor. Pain blossomed, 
  but this time he embraced it, accepted it. He used it, screaming 
  out his rage and pain and devotion.
  * * *
  “He sounds pissed,” Haney said.
  “Back,” Oz said, shoving himself back. “Back to the shuttle.”
  Haney opened his moth, but then closed it with a click of teeth. 
  He grunted, fired. Oz looked to the corridor junction. “Oh, shit.”
  The giant slammed against the bulkhead, gun already firing. The 
  whiz of slugs passing Oz’s head sang in his ears. He brought the 
  
  BattleCorps
  Monster • Page 10
  Intek to his shoulder, fired once. He missed. He fired again, but 
  then shouted as a stray round struck the laser. It sparked, flickered 
  once, and went dark.
  “Move, damn it!” Haney shouted. He was on his feet, shuffling 
  backwards, keeping his boots in contact with the deck. The twin 
  barrels of his Blazer flashed in tandem. The pulses spent them-
  selves on the bulkhead, on the deck. One struck the giant in the leg, 
  but had no visible effect. He dropped his magazines with a shake 
  to free them in the low gravity. His left hand was filled with a pair 
  of power packs.
  Oz drew his sidearm, a Python auto, and leveled it. The heavy 
  boom of its firing was almost swallowed in the stuttering of the 
  giant’s autorifle. Three shots, four, five… all of them struck the gi-
  ant in the torso. All them struck sparks and disappeared down the 
  corridor; ricochets. He kept firing, firing, not even counting. His 
  slide locked back on an empty chamber.
  The giant’s arm came up again, steady.
  “Back, goddamn it!” Haney lunged across the corridor and shoved 
  him backward. His Blazer bounced on the deck behind him. Empty 
  ammo pouches flapped on his harness. He reached down, came 
  up with his own Python. It hammered rounds at half-second inter-
  vals.
  The giant fired.
  “No!” Oz shouted, as Haney slumped.
  * * *
  The pain was too great. His vision was clouding, shrouding the 
  sight of his rounds tracking into the invader’s back. He swallowed 
  a grunt, shifted his aim.
  His gun jammed.
  He bellowed, slammed the offending limb against the bulkhead. 
  The heated barrel bent, distending his forearm. The pain was lost 
  in the maelstrom that was his cybernetics misfiring. But he had a 
  little control left. It would be enough.
  Enough to crush the life from the last Frail.
  
  BattleCorps
  Monster • Page 11
  * * *
  Haney whimpered as Oz let go of his harness. His eyes were 
  rolled back in his head, but Oz shoved him away, trying to get 
  clear. His hands clutched at his belt, fingers searching. He had two 
  more magazines for his Python. Somewhere.
  The giant swam toward him, left hand outstretched. His eyes 
  were glowing, Oz realized.
  “No,” Oz whispered. His fingers found the ammo pouch. He broke 
  a fingernail fumbling at the catch. The pain sparkled like glitter 
  across his vision, but he didn’t see it. All he saw was the giant. His 
  mouth was moving, but no words were coming out.
  The giant’s left hand closed around Oz’s throat like a hydrau-
  lic press. The fingers were hot, scalding, but hard as steel. He 
  hammered the empty pistol’s butt against the giant’s forearm. It 
  clinked, metal on metal.
  “I am your salvation” the giant gurgled. His eyes were totally 
  black, but glowed faintly red-yellow around the edges. A spider’s 
  web of silver crossed his forehead, standing out like veins. “I will 
  bring you the steps of the Blessed Blake, and your sins will be for-
  given. So says the Master.” The hand around Oz’s throat squeezed. 
  “I am His Hand.”
  Oz let his hand fall, taking the pistol away from the giant’s arm. His 
  feet kicked against the bulkhead, centimeters above deck. Red began 
  to creep in at the edges of his vision. He tried to swallow, couldn’t.
  * * *
  He relished the burning sensation in his left wrist. The Frail’s 
  struggles were lessening. Soon he’d be dead, another soul sacri-
  ficed to the Master’s plan. Another servant of the Blessed Blake. 
  He ignored the few spasms in the soldier’s body, the thumping 
  kick against his leg.
  There was a click.
  * * *
  The pistol was heavy as a mountain, but Oz fought it up. He 
  latched onto the burning in his arm, the tingling in his fingers. He 
  
  BattleCorps
  Monster • Page 1
  brought the Python up, snarling silently at the giant’s evil face. It 
  had taken an act of will unlike anything he’d ever done before to 
  seat the magazine.
  The muzzle of the Python came to rest against the giant’s right 
  eye. Oz saw the realization on the monster’s face, knew he had 
  little time.
  “Here’s your ticket,” he mouthed, and squeezed the trigger.
  The giant’s head exploded. Hydrostatic shock tore the pistol 
  from numb fingers.
  * * *
  It was a long time later that Oz heard movement behind him. 
  He’d bandaged Haney’s wounds as best he could, but he was no 
  medic. And he couldn’t bring himself to move too far from the gi-
  ant’s corpse. He couldn’t convince himself that it was really dead.
  Lights shone from toward the shuttle hatch. Oz pointed the 
  Python. He didn’t know how many rounds were in the magazine, 
  but he knew it was his last one. The rest were gone—fired, lost, 
  wherever. What he had in the weapon would have to be enough.
  “Stearns!” a voice shouted. “Stearns, report”!
  Oz lowered the pistol.  It was the captain. He tried to call, to beck-
  on, but he couldn’t. He was exhausted. His voice cracked, hoarse, 
  as if he’d been screaming for hours. Maybe he had. He clanked the 
  pistol against the bulkhead.
  “Over here!”
  Strong hands propped him up while others crowded around 
  Haney. He looked up, trying to focus. It really was the captain. Paul 
  Nealsson shook him gently, holding his chin with one hand.
  “Oz,” he said. “What happened here? How many were there?”
  “Just one,” Oz whispered.
  “We got a body over here,” another marine shouted. “Jesus, a 
  big one!”
  “That one,” Oz said. His hands were shaking, he saw. He’d let the 
  pistol loose. It clattered against the deck and rebounded.
  
  BattleCorps
  Monster • Page 1
  “Just one,” Nealsson whispered. He looked around, poking or-
  ders with his fingers. Oz felt the deck tremble ever so slightly as 
  other marine teams fanned out.
  “You sure this thing is dead?”
  The voices were getting fainter. Nealsson had his by the shoulder 
  and was dragging him—sliding him, really, what with no gravity to 
  hold him down—away from the corpse. He heard people convers-
  ing, snippets of conversation. He tried to keep his eyes open, tried 
  to keep his attention focused down the corridor.  But there was so 
  little light…
  “What’s that smell?” a marine asked.
  “Get back!”
  “Son of a bitch! That big bastard is melting!”
  “What?”
  “Acid or something. Thermite, I don’t know. There’s no heat spike 
  on the infrared, but it’s melting through the deck!” Nealsson’s 
  hand spasmed on Oz’s shoulder. The deck slammed him in the 
  back as the captain pushed him down and knelt beside him, a big 
  Imperator automatic loose in his hand.
  “What did you shoot it with?” Nealsson muttered. “Melting?”
  “Evac now!” a voice called. “We don’t know what’s in those 
  fumes. It could be poison!”
  “So much for being dead,” Nealsson said. He clutched at Oz again 
  and began to shuffle backward. The deck vibrated to the off-kilter 
  thumping of magnetic boots as the marines retreated.
  “Aim for its eyes,” Oz whispered. He felt himself being turned, felt 
  the slight prick of the needle as a medic injected him. He smiled 
  faintly as the sedative began to take hold, relaxing his muscles. He 
  would have chuckled, if he’d had the strength and the breath.
  “They glow,” he said.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/Monster - Jason Schmetzer.pdf