War Criminals, Gavin Smith [best novels for beginners .txt] 📗

experience was, sticking your head up in this kind of firestorm was pretty much a death sentence. Miska swung her AK-47 up and started firing three-round bursts at the ambushers, the weapon twitching and firing anytime she saw movement in her limited periphery, cursing the primitive optical sight. She sent a HEAP grenade towards any really persistent return fire. The AK-47 ran dry. Miska took shelter behind a tree. She was breathing heavily. She could feel the spores as she inhaled them. Return fire ate away at her soft fungal cover. Someone charged her. She had no idea why they didn’t have a gun. They looked wild-eyed. Miska triggered the flamer still bolted to the side of the AK-47. But she hadn’t lit the pilot light. The flamer squirted liquid fuel all over the crazed contractor. He kept coming. Miska let the AK-47/flamer drop on its sling and fast drew her Glock, shooting him as he was almost on her. The muzzle flash ignited the fuel. She kicked him away from her and put two more bursts into his face. He fell to the ground and burned.

There was movement behind her. She swung around and fired. Missed. Adjusted for her one eye. She took a hit to the chest, staggering back. She fired wild, using the Glock to suppress on full automatic. It wasn’t ideal. The contractor went down. She had no idea if she’d shot him or not. The slide was back on the empty Glock. She stuffed it back into the drop holster and drew the cut-down Winchester from its back sheath. She saw one of the contractors ahead of her. She fired the shotgun, knocking the woman into one of the fungal trees. She fired again and again, emptying the shotgun’s box magazine, then its tubular magazine as she closed. The rounds battered the woman’s armour. Miska transferred the empty shotgun to her left hand and drew her knife. She rammed it upwards into the woman’s throat. It was only then Miska realised that she was the one doing the screaming.

It was as though she’d just come to. Miska pulled her knife out of the contractor’s head and let her slide down into the mud. She still felt a little dazed as she looked around. Kaczmar was finishing off one of the contractors with a hatchet. Bean was scalping another before starting to saw off an ear. Miska stared at them for a moment. She knew she should establish order here. Then she remembered Nyukuti. Nyukuti was dead. Kasmeyer had tried to kill her. He had killed Nyukuti.

Miska turned and ran back through the spore-filled forest air towards where Hemi knelt over Kasmeyer’s fallen form. Miska skidded into the mud next to him.

‘I’m s-s-sorry,’ Kasmeyer managed, blood bubbling out of his mouth, ‘they knew about my family.’

‘Who!’ Miska screamed but of course he had gone. Hemi took his red hands away from Kasmeyer’s neck.

‘Sorry boss.’

Miska just stared at Kasmeyer’s corpse.

Chapter 19

Miska stared at Kasmeyer’s body.

It had stopped raining.

‘Boss?’ Mass asked. ‘Miska!’ Her head shot around to look at the button man. He looked angry. ‘You all right with this?’ Deeper in the fungal woods she could hear Kaczmar and Bean butchering the dead and dying. Taking their trophies. She looked at Mass, trying to make sense of his words through the fury that threatened to engulf her. She glanced back at Nyukuti’s body.

‘Wrap him in his poncho,’ she told him, ‘we’ll come back for it later.’

She could read the challenge in Mass’s eyes but instead he nodded curtly and turned to make his way towards the riverside where Nyukuti’s body lay next to their capsized Wader.

Hogg and Kaneda were neck-deep in the water as they waded towards dry land. She could see the third Triple S Wader now. It was on its side bobbing up and down in the water. It looked like its legs had been blown off. There were no signs of the Wader’s crew but Miska could make out bloodstains.

‘You need to let me look at that,’ Hemi said. She had almost forgotten he was there. His hands were still stained with Kasmeyer’s blood. It took a moment for Miska to work out what he was talking about. As she did she became aware of just how much pain she was in. One of Kasmeyer’s rounds had caught her in the back and lodged in her subcutaneous armour much closer to her spine than she was happy with.

‘Gel it and attach a medpak to drive it,’ she told him as she winced, unstrapping her hard ceramic armour plates. The back plate was useless now anyway. She actually cried out as she shrugged out of her inertial armour top. Hemi had gloved up and knelt down behind her. She winced again as she felt the cold medgel against the wound. Driven by the medpak the gel would slowly suck the bullet out, repairing the damage behind itself, but while that was going on Miska knew that she only needed to take one good blow to that part of her back and the bullet would bisect her spine.

‘Jesus Christ!’ she heard Mass shout from the riverside. Hemi had dropped the medpak and was reaching for his M19 carbine. Miska was reaching for her Glock. Then she remembered that it was empty.

Sloppy, she thought as she rapidly reloaded the pistol.

Mass had drawn his sidearm and was covering the Ultra as he rose out of the water. Hemi lowered his weapon but Miska didn’t think he entirely relaxed. The Ultra was blessedly dressed. He wore inertial armour in jungle pattern camouflage. His face was painted with waterproof camo-paint that made him look inhuman. Only then did Miska realise that it had been the Ultra’s painted face she had seen in the water. She guessed that he had been what had happened to the third Triple S Wader as well.

‘Goddamned freak,’ Mass muttered as the Ultra walked by. Miska watched him approach