Crystal Venom (2 page)

‘Seems a waste of materials, Marko.’

The others had all left and Glint and Marko were alone at the table.

‘What’s a waste, Glint?’

Glint pointed at the table tops around them. ‘Seeing all the uneaten food and the cups, plates and cutlery just being consumed by the tables like that.’

‘Actually, it’s very efficient. There’s no waste and the plates, cups and tableware are all grown new, so no cleaning and storage. This way the building gets fed as well so it can grow any new rooms we want and constantly maintain itself; and it can be assured that nothing biologically hazardous is left inside it either as, believe me, the technology consuming the leftovers can kill just about anything known.’

Glint started and quickly asked, ‘Would it eat me if I sat on it for long enough?’

Marko smiled and resisted the urge to ruffle Glint’s frill. ‘Nope, because it knows who you are and that you are alive. Come on, time to sort ourselves and then off to the workshops.’

They walked back to their quarters, with Glint giving a full commentary on what an interesting material food was, and an update on what he had built into himself. And telling Marko how Topaz, the sentient design and construction unit, and Patrick, the frigate
Basalt’s
controlling AI, had been very helpful creating the components and the interfaces.

Marko brushed his teeth and explained to Glint that decaying remnants of food would not be good in his mouth either. Marko snapped an additional wooden toothbrush from a small branch over the top of the basin and handed it to Glint. He grinned, thinking that the day was all the more interesting as he watched Glint getting to grips with a toothbrush for the first time. He walked over to the room’s screen, brought up the housekeeping menu and advised the system that it would need to grow an additional two toothbrushes per day for as long as they stayed at the base.

‘I need better teeth, Marko. These tapered plates are good, but actual teeth would be a lot better. I shall do some research. What do I do with this used brush? Interesting taste: what is it?’

Marko reached across and patted Glint’s shoulder. ‘You make me laugh. You are a walking, talking advertisement for the attitude: “If it can be improved, just do it!” Leave it in the basin and it’ll be consumed as well. The taste? Ummmmm, peppermint, I think. There’s a thought. I wonder what the real stuff looks and tastes like. Must ask Stephine when she gets back.’

As they walked across the Base to the main hangars, the rest of the crew gradually attached themselves to the group. Jan, after giving Marko a good-morning kiss, patted Glint on the head and said: ‘Morning, beautiful creature. My spies tell me you have been augmenting yourself. Here ... I have something for you.’ She pulled a large, brightly coloured lollipop from her jacket and passed it over to him.

‘Thanks, Jan! Lolly on a stick! I know about these.’

Watching him hobbling along on three legs, eating his lollipop, had everyone in fits of laughter, to which Glint reacted by hamming it up even more.

They all looked out across the wide sweeping horseshoe-shaped bay and its distant towering volcanic buttresses, as a stiff breeze came in off the sea bringing a cloud front with it, making Fritz complain about it being cold.

Jan looked at him witheringly. ‘You are a wimp, Fritz! Get another vest or at very least step up your bioware for a better blood temperature.’

Fritz, the eternal teenager, shrugged and mumbled, ‘Can’t find my spare vest.’

Marko laughed, saying, ‘The room probably consumed it thinking it had additional calorific value, considering how rarely you shower, Fritzy! No wonder the eel bitey beast from the library planet did not want to eat you. It probably smelt you through the canopy!’

Fritz looked angry. ‘Fuck off, Marko! You are such an arse! It bloody well did want to eat me!’

Still grinning, they let themselves into one of the vehicle workshops through the large living wooden doors and giant living leaf walls, which, when originally planted, had grown up to curve across and bond at the roof apex, forming a half-barrel-shaped structure. The senior members of the crew, Warrant Officer First Class Harry Stevens and Major Michael Longbow, had arrived before the rest of them and were deep in discussion with a group of the base engineers. Harry gestured for all to join them.

The major spoke first. ‘Morning, people. First things first. It’s officially called the KA14 by its original creators and operators, but what are
we
going to call it?’

They looked up at the huge hulking machine parked in the centre of the hangar.

After a few seconds Fritz spoke up.
‘Mudshark.
Yeah, call it
Mudshark.’

They all looked at him, then back at the squat Gjomvik Corporation combat hovercraft, then looked across at Fritz and back to the major.

‘
Mudshark
? Any particular reason, Fritz?’ asked the major.

The large-headed little man just shrugged. ‘Looks like one, right? Kind of obvious really.’

The major looked at the hovercraft and nodded once. ‘Well, I reckon since we recovered it mostly intact and since you had a lot to do with the recovery, Fritz, I say we go with that.
Mudshark
it is, people. OK, that is a mean ugly-looking sucker. Always thought mudsharks were kind of pretty animals but there you go. Harry, brief the guys, please, I’ll be in my office. See you on board shortly.’

Harry Stevens was not really a big guy, but he had ‘presence’ and even those who had seen the worst of him still had an immense respect and liking for him. When he spoke they shut up — even Glint, and particularly Fritz, who treated him like his father which, considering Fritz’s rather intriguing past, was probably fitting. Harry gestured to the ACE mechanical spider, Flint — his constant companion — who tapped the keys on the desktop until a full holo of
Mudshark
hovered above the large square table.

Harry spoke loudly and clearly. ‘Gather in, everyone.’

As they moved around the desktop, he started the briefing. ‘Well, it’s a bit of a beast. That Gjomvik company really screwed up royally in letting us get our hands on it, as it holds tech that I know they would not be keen on us seeing let alone taking to pieces. Interesting; not entirely sure what its actual theatre of operation would be, but I’d say they designed it for long-range insertion of their small armoured walking units over most terrain types — and fairly quickly at that, as it has good low-altitude flight characteristics as well. Then it would be able to hang back and give them some fairly mean fire support as well. The guns are nice. I’d say that they are an upgrade of their MK-17 120mm rail gun. They are still 120mm but there was no ammo left on board by the time we got to it, so I can only go on the sizings of the breeches, ammo drums and feeds as to the propellant casings. Looks like they had at least four types of ammo and considering that this thing has the capacity to carry at least two tonne of the stuff they must have been involved in an absolute pit fight before the crew abandoned ship.’

They all nodded in agreement as Harry continued.

‘And they must have been pumping the ammo through. The barrels are knackered and they were nice barrels, really nice. Toast now. Obviously, whatever they went up against they were shit scared to pump that amount of ammo through in such a short space of time. A wonder they didn’t go bang, actually. I think that one was about to; the cooling pumps on the starboard guns are fried. May have been why the crew legged it. Pity this outpost doesn’t have more surveillance satellites as I’d love to see what they had for escape modules. Looking at the personnel stations on board, they had five crew. There may have been something in the hangar as well but we have no idea what it was.’

Fritz opened his mouth to speak but when he saw that Harry wasn’t finished he closed it again.

‘By the time we arrived the modules were both over the horizon and still accelerating, so they must be a classy bit of kit as well. Umm, the power plants are sweet, really sweet, helluva long way from anything the Games Board would allow us to use in any AV battle as they are too powerful. The Board will go ape when they see this. Bloody fortunate that the boss was able to get that Harpoon into it as quickly as he did. Beautiful missile, Fritz. Took perfect control of
Mudshark’s
electronics. It was literally seconds from going boom bigtime. Nice bit of tech that, Fritz, well done. Looking at the remains of the computer logs, the Harpoon took total control in about three milliseconds. We had better have a look at marketing that to the Administration. Chunk of coin in that for all of us. Helluva test fire, eh! OK, we can talk about that later.’

As Harry spoke, the image of the craft came apart with the individual units expanding in size, allowing them all a clear view of what it was like inside as well as out.

‘The boss agrees that this thing is repairable with what we have here on base and we might just as well be doing something useful while waiting for our next deployment. We can’t use
Mudshark
’s hangar as it’s just not high enough for any of our combat walkers or mechs. Fritz, Marko, let’s get our heads together later and cook something up at some stage, if required. I have always considered the need for a smaller more compact mech a worthy design project anyway. Right, the guns we can rebuild. I have the base’s Manufacturing AI already onto it. That and some nice new ammo as well.’

He paused for a second, tapping his wrist screen and saying, ‘Memo: I need to talk to the boss about that ammo. End.’

He looked around at the crew and continued. ‘OK. The cooling pumps we’ll refit with ours; also need a new computer and the Tech AI is happy to give us some of himself whenever we are ready. There is a massive load of deep scoring under the hull and subsequently about twenty-five per cent of the underside armour is stuffed. We have that being made as well and delivery is about ten hours away. They had class armour as they pinched our Cobra gear and placed another beryllium bronze layer over it. Nice. The camo is actually bonded into the surface, bites in about point two of a millimetre. Have already loaded up the specs on that to the Intel AI. She likes it. More points for us. Having said that she is going nuts trying to figure out what damaged the armour.’

He paused for a few seconds to look at one of his wrist screens then continued. ‘All she is coming up with is a biological agent. Says she will have some results in a day or so. Like I said, the power plants are sweet, but Glint, I need you and Marko to get into the software on them as there is something there that the AIs can’t ID yet, so give them more raw data. Try not to wreck them, will ya? The figures say the plants are pumping out some seven per cent more usable power than ours are.

‘Now, the AG units are both wrecked. That’s the big ticket item. The boss has started negotiations with the Games Board. They like the idea of
Mudshark
going up against a bunch of our units, but I kind of like the idea of new tech for good or not so good. Or maybe someone has cooked up some interesting punch up to justify the manufacture of this machine. Still, you all know my views on the Games Board as they are getting more and more manipulative to get their stories. Anyway, let’s get on with it. The Base AI stripped all the self-destruct stuff out and the Harpoon has been disengaged so everything has been made safe; that’s what Base says but ... be careful, eh. And keep an eye out: we still don’t know why this thing is on this world, so any clues upload ‘em right away. See you all at smoko. Oh, Fritz, the boss wants a report on the Harpoon as soon as you are ready.’

While Harry had been briefing them they had all quietly powered up their neural spectral links, placing them in their ears. They still wore their headpieces but Base could only hear them if they spoke aloud. Comms now became very fast and seamless, with an interface that linked through Glint; his was always the primary job of laying out the link networks, which he did with his usual speed and efficiency, more often than not helped by the large mechanical spider, Flint, and, when he was around, the cat, Nail. The small self-aligning scales, which would automatically adhere and orient themselves so that their light-based comms systems could operate, seemed to float off Glint as he rounded bends, establishing line-of-sight maser communications throughout
Mudshark.

As they followed him, the usual gossip, news, new music from Fritz and jokes — as gathered by Flint — were uploaded from the seven of them onto their own personal net, completely free of outside interference or snooping. The Base AIs could not hack into it as they knew that Glint had some unique software running through his bulletproof self. Neither Fritz nor Marko could actually get a handle on it either. Fritz said that it was based on his original designs and code but that Glint had taken it to a whole new level. Marko believed that Glint had come up with it himself, but Harry believed that Stephine had given the ACE something. Marko, being a proud dad, still believed that his creation had done it for himself.

Marko went to his assigned locker and pulled out the coffin-like light engineering suit carrier. He stripped and laid down as it formed itself around him. Leaving the helm off, he caught up with Glint as they made their way onto
Mudshark.

Thinking about it, Marko decided it would be nice to see the wonderfully enigmatic Stephine, and her man Veg, together with her ACE — the cat, Nail — again soon. The crew seemed incomplete when they weren’t around. As soon as they had all arrived at the Base, Stephine and Veg had sent a quick “bye and see you soon’ and disappeared to a remote part of the planet to search out interesting life types in their own ship.