Koko the Mighty (3 page)

It was so humiliating. Reluctantly, Britch took the offer and to his surprise he discovered, in time, that the recruiters were right. Purchasing and actuarial logistics were the robust pillars of his ken, and for a spell Britch secured work as a quartermaster for long-haul projects in quarantined resource regions. Regretfully, though, with his ass parked behind a desk ninety percent of the time, a freakish genetic anomaly in his thyroid kicked in and prompted a dramatic if not startling weight gain.

Britch had always been a mite pudgy, but his sudden monstrous growth spurt was something else. The cataclysmic megalo increase in weight whittled away at the tenuous underpinnings of his fragile ego, so to counteract the condition he first sought out medical options and then attempted to bulk up with weights. Both solutions, however, only seemed to aggravate his problem, and Britch finally decided to take his condition in his stride. He defended a position that it did not matter how he looked because his intrinsic values rested with his managerial proficiencies.

As things turned out, several of the Custom Pleasure Bureau’s recruiters took notice of Britch’s fastidious knack for logistics and sought out his expertise. Naturally, in person the CPB and The Sixty’s personnel recruiters had their reservations regarding his physical detriments, but they hired Britch anyway with the assurance they wanted him for his talents at cost-slashing, supply management, and the like.

For six months on the resort Britch hardly needed to remind himself how good he had it. Honestly, a job on The Sixty Islands? One of the most lavishly insane resorts on the planet? Some people would murder for a slot. Working air-conditioned days at the resort headquarters, shuffling the provisions hither and yon and burnishing the bottom line—life was sweeter than sweet and more than cushy. But then SI management made a shift in policy. All security personnel (no ifs, ands or buts) were now required to pull patrol assignments regardless of their responsibilities.

For Britch, the sudden policy deviation was awful. Hoofing about and keeping an eye on people having the time of their lives was a sheer burden on his knees, not to mention insulting. He requested several times in writing for permanent excusal from patrol tasks, citing unabashedly that it was imprudent waste of his obvious strengths. Management did not appreciate his candor, and as punishment they upped his patrol count and drastically reduced his pay by half.

So now he’s being tagged with a priority BOP summons from Dispatch. Britch considers forwarding the call to one of the other officers also on patrol duty this evening and scans the crowds for someone else to lay the call off on. Dropping his spent kebab skewer in the sand, Britch sucks his fingers and keys the epaulette mic again.

“Clarify event specifics, over.”

“Initiating camerascope playbacks to your data tab now. Non-simulated shooting. SI saloon facility, one Martstellar, Koko P., proprietor.”

Britch’s head snaps: a wobbly double-take. Pork-slimed fingers be damned, he clutches his shoulder and nearly rips the epaulette mic free from his uniform.

“Dispatch, can you repeat that, over.”

“Transmitting…”

Britch yanks his data tab from its clip on his duty belt. He knows damn well the saloon’s exact location and recalls reviewing directives from the CPB and The Sixty’s executive offices that all security personnel should make an extra effort to keep an eye on its owner, a former professional mercenary known as Koko Martstellar. Something to do with a recent senior administrative upheaval. Of course Britch had heard the rumors about the skirmish on The Sixty’s runway apron several months back, when a late SI executive was blown to bits, but the files regarding what had actually transpired, or why it had even happened in the first place, had been scrubbed clean from the available archives. Word was Martstellar had been involved, but since then reports on the woman’s activities had been unremarkable. From all outward appearances Martstellar was just another vendor getting a saloon and brothel operation online to service vacationing clientele.

After the costly flak Britch received for requesting excusal from patrol duties, he knows better than to go kicking a skunk. Nevertheless, he has to wonder. Something like this? A non-simulated shooting connected with Martstellar? This sort of cock-up stinks of leverage. If he handles it well, Britch might even be able to get his compensation back on track
and
free himself of patrol obligations.

Smearing a greasy forefinger on the data tab’s screen to activate the interface, Britch cues up the transmitted visuals from Dispatch. With resolution enlargements, the event images are distorted, but they reel out dramatically in an edited playback loop. Britch adjusts the data tab’s audio controls for volume, but hearing anything above DJ Rajini Superwong and the Slavectors on the main stage is impossible. Doesn’t matter. What Britch sees on the tiny screen is more than enough to gas his butt into high gear.

“This is Britch. I’m on my way.”

Flying down the access road in the cargo ute, Koko slams on the brakes, and the two release specialists trailing behind on the terra-sled come to a halt behind.

Climbing down from the cab and stepping out into the hammering rain, Koko grabs the bug-out backpacks from the ute’s bed and quickly tears open a pocket.

“You two, shut that terra-sled down,” she shouts.

The two young men do as she says, and Koko pulls a first-aid kit from the backpack. From the kit she retrieves a laser scalpel and without warning she stalks over to the two release specialists. Koko grabs one by his right arm and from his wet wrist quickly slices out his biometric identifier.

“Owza-wowza, Koko-sama! What you doin’?”

“Shut up.”

After cutting out the identifier, Koko cuts out her own and sticks hers into the whining release specialist’s shorts.

“Get back on the terra-sled and head straight for the airfield.”

“Me, Koko-sama? No-no, me stay with you.”

“No! Airfield! Now!”

Sheepishly, the young man does as Koko orders, loops a leg over the terra-sled and takes off. Koko then grabs the second by his arm.

“Come here, hot stuff. Help me get Master Flynn out of the cab.”

Together they head to the front of the ute. Flynn is in the passenger seat and Koko opens the door. When they drag him out, Flynn howls.

“Wait! Hang on, my leg!”

“Give me your right arm!”

“What?”

“I said, give me your right arm! Your wrist!”

On the ground, Flynn looks up at Koko, baffled. Reluctantly, he holds out his arm. Koko pulls it close and works the laser scalpel.

“What the—?
OW!
Do you mind telling me what the hell you’re doing?”

Koko finishes slicing open his wrist. “Evasive maneuvers, sugar.”

Picking out the bloody identifier from Flynn’s wrist, Koko flicks the tiny device on the floor of the cab and tells the second release specialist to drive the cargo ute as fast as he can to the farthest island on the resort. Visibly glad she didn’t take the laser scalpel to his own wrist, the young man spins around to the driver’s side of the ute, climbs in, and zooms off in a spray of mud. Koko takes a breath and looks toward the brush alongside the road.

“There’s a maintenance access tunnel about twenty meters from here,” she says.

Flynn holds his bleeding wrist. “Maintenance tunnel?”

“Yeah, to the islands and resort’s support infrastructure. Right here there’s a gap in the archipelago’s scanners, so they’ll think one of us is still in the ute, and the other is on the terra-sled hauling ass for the airfield. I’m trying to buy us some time.”

Flynn swallows. “God, Koko, I don’t think I can make twenty meters.”

“Fifty milligrams of morphine says you will.”

Koko pulls a morphine injector from the first-aid kit, and sticks it into Flynn’s wounded leg. She then snatches the two bug-out packs and loops one on her back and the other one off her shoulder.

“Holy smokes,” Flynn says with softening wonder, “that’s what morphine feels like? That shit is amazing.”

“It’s reducing your brain’s awareness of pain, but it won’t numb it completely. Now get the fuck up. Let’s go.”

A minute and a half later they arrive at the maintenance access tunnel door. The door is rusted and covered with thick vines, but with a good pull, it opens with enough room for them to squeeze their way through. Inside, the passage is pitch dark, and Koko drags Flynn down a ramp.

“Where are we going?” Flynn asks.

“You’ll see. Keep moving.”

Soon the sound of sloshing water can be heard, and the dark passage they are in opens up to reveal a massive, cavernous space, replete with gangways, monstrous pipes, conduits, and overhead lights. Beneath them, on a series of docks hedging a large body of slopping seawater, are the humped backs of a dozen large and small winged submarines.

“Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me,” Flynn says.

“You get seasick?”

“I’ve never even been on a boat!”

“Now’s as good a time as any.”

Together they cross a series of zig-zagging ramps down to the docks. A maintenance technician spots them approaching and instantly Koko sizes the man up. Tall and ropey, he carries himself a bit too heavily to his right side, which to Koko means the big galoot favors it. The tech caustically starts spouting meaningless words of how it’s a restricted area and they don’t belong there, and Koko screams at him in a strange foreign tongue. The tech is so startled by Koko’s outburst, he falters and steps back clumsily. It’s what Koko intended; get him off balance. She charges and lands a haymaker right into the tech’s temple. Tottering, the galoot fights back with a series of wild hooks, but Koko slaps away each blow and uses a three-punch cross and kick combination to drop him to the dock. She shoves Flynn toward the submarines bobbing in the quay.

“Which one?” Flynn cries.

Koko points to the largest winged submarine tied to the dock pilings directly ahead of them.

“There, the one with the open hatch. Take the gangway.”

Gingerly and quickly as he can, Flynn limps ahead and makes his way up the gangway. Koko has the bounty agent’s weapon drawn and she checks the periphery. More technicians have noticed the ruckus and are headed their way. Someone hits an alarm, and an earsplitting horn screeches.

Koko aims and opens fire at the surrounding electrical cables and delivery conduits, anything that might short out or explode. Like schoolchildren on a bee-streaked playground, the advancing techs scatter. Flynn is struggling his way into the sub’s open hatch.

“Hurry, Flynn!”

“I’m trying!”

There’s no time for niceties. Koko leaps onto the gangway and storms up to the hatch. Planting a boot on Flynn’s shoulder she forces him down inside. Flynn falls and lands spread-eagled on the deck below with a loud
OOOF
!

“Sorry, baby!”

Koko drops the bug-out packs on top of him, one by one, climbs in, and pulls the hatch closed. Spinning a wheel to lock the hatch off, she can hear muddled footsteps and shouts above her. When Koko looks at Flynn, she sees he’s passed out.

She steps over him. Truth be told, Koko has never set foot on a submarine and hasn’t the first clue about how to run one. All manner of flight craft and armored land vehicles, maybe a few amphibious watercraft now and then, but a submarine? Never. Her brain zips briskly through ephemeral, fragmentary notions. Something to do with positive and negative buoyancies and hydroplanes. She ducks under a riveted seam and makes her way to the sub’s small bridge. As she’s slipping into the vessel’s pilot seat, a round yellow button marked
POWER
looks promising, so she jabs at it. There is a sharp click and then the submarine’s powerful fusion engines roar to life.

Crap
, Koko thinks,
I didn’t have time to cast off the dock lines. Oh, well.

Running her eyes over the controls, Koko grabs what looks like the throttle and slams it forward. The lurch from the stern is explosive, and the sub rips free of the dock in a shattering opus of destruction.

When Koko glances out the thick, bathyscaphic bow screen in front of her, one of the shouting technicians from above tumbles off the hull and falls into the water. Tugging back on the throttle, Koko throws a quick look back at Flynn. He still looks passed out, but she shouts at him anyway.

“Hang on!”

Chugging up and onto a plane, the submarine careens across the open water. Koko suddenly realizes that the only way out of the subterranean docking area is down. She needs to figure out the vessel’s submersion functions and hydroplanes, like, fast.

On the sub’s steering wheel there are two green- and red-colored toggles.
Green and red mean starboard and port, right?
Koko flicks the toggles, but there’s no response. The far vertical wall of the cavernous docking space looms closer so she starts hitting and flipping every lever and button in sight. One of the levers blows the ballast and auxiliary trim tanks and after a loud, whisking hiss a full sluicing chorus of rushing water follows. The sub descends.

Oh, man… maybe it’s like flying?

No time for second guesses because they’re about to slam into the far wall. Koko pushes the helm’s wheel forward and miraculously the winged sub enters a sharp thirty-degree dive.

“Whoo-hoo! Now we’re talking!”

Outside, a bubbling suffusion of seawater rushes over the bow screen. Through the bubbles Koko can make out yellow directional lighting leading down a long, wide tunnel, and up ahead a large algae-covered sign with yellow letters reads:

EASTERN PACIFIC

Koko eases back the helm, and the sub sways from side to side. Leveling out their angle and reaching neutral buoyancy, she notches up their speed. Five hundred meters ahead a wide ovate exit soon becomes visible, hooped with flashing white signal lights.

It’s funny, but Koko suddenly remembers that old story about a fisherman being swallowed by a great fish-beast.

Great fish-beast?

The great fish-beast can kiss her ass.