CHAPTER ONE

Shamblers

 A form lurched out foggy darkness, a black and deformed body illuminated by Planet #17’s weird green moon behind it. It swayed first left, then right, each step little more than a mindless flailing of limbs. Its arms draped at its side, hands twitching and shaking. An eerie moan slid out of its hidden face.

It was too dark to tell what in the hell it was—other than human.

Well, maybe human. Maybe native.

Why in hell does this shit always happen to me?

I’d spent two days driving around this shit-hole planet looking for the hidden lab of some dude named Professor Zorsky (I took to calling him Doctor Z), before I found this crummy road. I’d spent the prior two days seeking information on the same, paying off the local gangsters for intel, holding up nasty informants at blade point, even fornicating with one loathsome three-armed guy, feeling the entire time like someone was stalking me.

And here I was.

Almost to the target, and this shit happens. Basic damn job, I’d thought. No fighting monsters or mercenaries or government men. No killing.

A thousand easy damn chits.

Yeah right.

Just when payday is right down the road, this freaky shit wanders out of the swamp. Figures. Just my damn luck.

I stepped from the old Willy’s hover jeep that I’d acquired (through nefarious channels, I might add) back in New Cape Town, and side-straddled away, sliding my Colt particle automatic from its holster on my hip. If whatever-the-shit it was decided to fight, I didn’t want any harm coming to the sexy blonde in the passenger seat. No way. That was prime tail.

And flush with Corporation cash.

I remember meeting her at the Palace Saloon in Perdition outside New Bisbee, on the edge of the Frontier. She had a job. Looking for help. She flashed her creds. I harrumphed and she laid out the story of her kidnapped scientist—taken by the damn Collectivists for some unseemly reason, no doubt. I don’t do politics. But I do cold cash. And I do blue eyes and a pretty smile.

Now, I’m no homecoming queen type, but I am stone-cold sexy, I don’t mind sayin’. The girls and boys get a bit of a rush from my hard body, tats, wicked grin and crazy dreads. Still, despite my hot-itude, I’m weak in the knees for the baby blues.

So, I took the job. Didn’t ask a single damn question, other than who, where, what, when. Didn’t care about the why. That was for more noble folks.

I sneaked a sideways look at her there in the jeep. Her blue eyes filled with worry, pouty lips pulled back in concern as she clutched at her messenger bag. Her brown, lambskin town coat (completely unsuited for this sort of work) rose and fell with her rapid breathing, all tightly bound around a body that I’d have killed for.

I shuddered for a second, a warm hunger rising in me.

Nope. Ms. Muller, secret government some-damn-thing (the word agent seemed wrong, given her rather soft disposition) and scientist was going home in one piece. My ticket to a nice pile of chits.

Maybe to something more.

Heh. Heh.

Back to the thing at hand . . .

The night was cold. And wet. And dark—except for that weird-ass moon. But none of that would matter when the killing started.

I pulled my sighting monocle down over my eye. The visual stimulator went to work. The world brightened; the creature solidified in my mind: a clear, easy target. I called to the creature to stop, but it continued its onward stagger. I raised my blaster and called again.

“Stop walking, you freaky shit, and git on yer face.”

Nothing. Fucker just kept ambling toward me.

Another time, another place, I might have hesitated, worried about the law catching me. Or maybe I’d have gone around the freak. But I was on a deadline. And there was no way around in this marsh. Besides, there was no law out here on the Frontier. Only what you make—and what you back up with blaster or steel.

So, I pulled the trigger.

The blast slammed into it, a brilliant blue flash, center body—right where I’d painted the bull’s-eye.

The thing stopped and staggered, looked weirdly up into the night sky, and then let loose a loud, angry scream that ripped through the near-silent night.

Ah fuck.

It lowered its face and glared at me, eyes glowing ungodly purplish now, like a god damn demon.

“Stay in the jeep,” I yelled at Ms. Muller, and advanced ahead of the bumper—my dumbass girl-chivalry and all. I raised my pistol again as it rushed forward.

Fucking A. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I fired twice more.

The blue bolts of energy burned into it as it stumbled forward. The flashes illuminated a face—a human face—all twisted and deformed, at once withered and sagging, rotting and grown over with some dark mold-ish shit. It’s mouth hung open on decayed flesh, revealing bone and teeth beneath.

It was almost on me when my next blast plugged it square in the face, sending it ass-over-head onto the road behind. Then it lay still.

My heart was blazing in my chest, my breath short.

I gathered myself up and strode the fifty meters to it. There I squatted, next to it, ankle deep in an expanding pool of blood—or some shit—that leaked from its body onto the already muddy road. The last bit of air escaped its vented throat in an unholy sigh.

Living. Not a zombie.

I reached out trembling fingers to feel for a pulse, touch its skin, anything to determine if it was human.

Just then, Ms. Muller’s scream rent the night and pierced my ears like a knife.

I stood and spun to see two more shambling what-the-hell-ever-they are’s come out of the gloom, near the jeep, moving faster than I’d have imagined possible. I raised my gun to fire, but they were too close to the jeep, and too far in the dark.

My heart leaped into my throat, and I dashed forward.

Too late!

One of the brutes grabbed at the blonde and tore her from the car, flinging her to the ground at its feet.

With strength I couldn’t fathom, the other grabbed the jeep’s bumper with both hands and yanked, raising it momentarily from the ground before it tore the bumper away from the unfortunate vehicle, letting it fall to bounce weirdly on its air-cushion. I’d seen cybernetics at work; hell, I had a cybernetic arm. But nothing like that. That was not cybernetics, that was almost supernatural.

Damn.

I let out a disgusted sigh as I watched, and then charged. The other creature made ready to mash the beautiful scientist. I couldn’t let that happen. I raised my automatic and fired as I ran.

The creature and Ms. Muller were partially hidden behind the jeep. Two particle energy bursts pounded into the side of our jeep’s engine compartment. The third tore a black line across the monster’s shoulder. A loud rush of air whipped through the night, and the Jeep’s air cushion deflated. The broken vehicle collapsed pitifully to the ground, and its previous attacker turned toward me.

Damn.

“Two on one. Come get it fuckers!” I screamed, fully believing this might be the end of Hunter Caine and the beautiful Ms. Muller.

No sooner had the words left my mouth, then a red bolt of energy blazed out of the night on my right front and took the creature at the front of the jeep in the guts. Another bolt slammed into its barrel chest and another to the shoulder.

The zombie-like creature fell back, its chest burning and spitting blood and smoke into the night. It howled and howled as it clutched at the wounds.

I took a moment to peer to the right. Three men, all dolled up in green-and-black body armor and wielding military style blasters, advanced from the swamp.

Grateful for the help, I didn’t have time to consider who they were. Instead, I sped past the wounded freak to deal with Ms. Muller’s attacker. He pulled her up toward his mouth, two half-emaciated hands gripping at her chest, pulling the jacket apart as he opened his nasty mouth to take a bite.

Ms. Muller was whimpering, slapping and clawing at him as he slowly raised her. Visions of her beautiful, smooth throat being devoured by the filthy fucker filled my mind’s eye and I blasted away at his face: One. Two. Three shots in rapid succession.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Three bolts of energy slammed into his face and throat, pitching him backward as disgusting tissue material, bone fragments and blood dissipated in all directions. He dropped her violently to the road and collapsed onto the ground.

Filled with rage, I leaped over her supine form, legs first, my boots slamming into his headless body and crushing through his broken ribcage. A last pump of blood and purplish bodily fluids flowed out of his corpse as he expired motionless under me.

I spun sideways as two more blasts tore through the night and sent the last of the three creatures to its death at the front of the jeep.

I took a moment to breathe.

Jeezus Christ. What the hell?

The jeep was fucked. Ms. Muller had been torn from the vehicle and thrown to the ground, almost devoured by the grim, hungry freaks.

How the thing hadn’t killed her, I didn’t know, but I was Goddamn happy about it.

I stood over the dead zombie thing and extended a hand to the foxy blonde as she lay there on the ground, all disheveled. My eyes instinctively dropped to the ripe swell of her breasts, exposed by her now-opened jacket. I pulled my eyes away, feeling like a pervy bitch.

She took my hand, pulled herself up, skittishly zipped her jacket closed and cleaved to me. She wrapped her trembling arms around me. Her breasts, firm and . . . well, they pressed against mine and I barely suppressed a gasp.

“It’s all right, Ms Muller,” I said, and held her a little longer than I should have. I felt the warmth, the flush of her cheek against mine.

“Yes ma’am. It’s alright,” our new benefactor said.

Till then I’d ignored them, so focused was I on saving Ms. Muller.

He held out his hand to me, palm open as if to shake. He was a strapping man, tight black beard, dark eyes and the kind of shoulders that let you know the rest of him was hard as steel. The kind I’d like to lay down with when the time was right, Ms. Muller or not.

I hesitated, still not wanting to let the scientist free. Then, after some long moment, I let her slide away from me, reached out and shook it while Ms. Muller sidled a half-step away, still close enough to feel,  straightened her jacket and hefted her satchel up on her shoulder.

“Captain Jack Devine,” he said.

I smiled at the name. “Yes, you are,” I whispered to Ms. Muller, setting her to suppress a giggle before the seriousness of our situation took us again.

“There’s more out there, ladies. In the marsh. We’ve been killing ‘em for weeks. Hired by the New Cape Town Constabulary to clean things up.” He waived a hand out toward the dark.

I didn’t cotton to him calling us ‘ladies.’ It sounded more condescending to me than it should have. Maybe it was his big beefy arms, or square jaw. Made me insecure . . . or horny. Who knows? I let it pass. Bigger fish and all. But, I suddenly didn’t like him anyway. And I knew there was no local Constabulary in shit-for-government New Cape Town. Place was run by gangsters and whore runners, as I previously expounded. Around here, didn’t make you a bad guy to lie, but it didn’t endear him to me, neither.

So I smiled at him.

Liked him less and less. Certainly, didn’t trust him. Maybe I’d fuck him later. Maybe not. But don’t let the opportunity to build the case for sex pass, I figured.

I looked to Ms. Muller. “Can’t be far, this laboratory of yours,” I said.

She nodded, golden curls bouncing. “’S’pose not,” she said.

“Right up this road. Maybe a mile. Maybe bit more,” I said as confidently as I could.

I reached into the broken jeep, grabbed my rucksack (loaded with two frags, a micro-demo charge [MDC], torch, extra particle batteries, trauma kit, water and various other survival shit), and threw it over my shoulders. Then I grabbed my headgear, stuffed my pink dreads up under the helmet and latched it under my chin. Finally, I dragged out my trusty Sharps M21 particle carbine, cycled the bolt and listened to it whine a bit as it charged up.

Ready.

“Whoa . . .” said beefcake as I geared up. His two grim faced men stepped back, hands on their guns.

I raised mine to let ’em know, things wouldn’t go well for them if they were dumb enough to throw down.

He held up his hands, palm out to calm his minions.

“What’s this about a laboratory?” he asked.”And what the hell is a sexy girl like you doing, carrying a cannon like that?” he added almost jokingly.

No better way to piss me off than make that kind of shit comment.

“I kill things for a living,” I snapped at him. “I’m Hunter Caine.”

I lifted my jaw, stared him down a little, turned and grabbed the scientist’s elbow. “Come on,” I said and dragged Ms. Muller ahead, making to walk the distance to the lab of the mysterious Doctor Z.

“Hunter Caine,” his voice followed me. “Hunter Motherfucking Caine.”

I spun around and sneered at his pretty face. “That’s right. Hunter Motherfucking Caine.” I hefted the blaster up, and cupped it in the crook of my arm, as if to make a show.

“So, it is. Should have known. All the talk about your knockers wasn’t all bullshit.” He made a point of staring at my breasts, as if that was something new, then said, “and you kill all right too.”

I sneered at him. Left it at that. “If you’re still here when I get back, we can maybe talk about things,” I said.

He guffawed throatily, sexily, his smile filled with straight white teeth. He said,“still, I think you might like the guns of Black Moon Company helping you out, making it across that black-as-shit swamp. You could barely handle one of those things. We got three more guns. All we ask is to split the payday.”

I should have known better. But, I figured just then that I’d be better off knowing exactly where they were. I said. “Come if you like, but the chits are mine.”

Silence for a moment. Muller and I turned and strode on.

“Alrighty,” he said, his voice now distant. “Maybe there’ll be treasure.”

His boys fell in behind him, as Ms. Muller and I led the way.

“If I get what I’m after,” Ms. Muller said, with a strange assertiveness and clutched her bag close.

A chord of pride rose in me and I nodded at her.

She nodded back at me, her blue eyes, steel.

Call Hunter. You got the cash. She’s got the flash.”