The Killertrine Storm Read online

  'Captain Darke, I need you to do something for me. I know it's a big ask.'

  'Doctor, half the things you say make no sense to me, but while I can't explain what has been happening in Worcester these past months, I have a feeling you can. I'm willing to help in any way I am able.'

  'Brilliant. Good man. I need you to stay here with the Sheriff, as close as you can without it being obvious. You should be safe, so long as whoever's pulling laughing boy's strings doesn't realise we're onto them. If he does anything out of the ordinary, anything at all, send word to Emily's lodgings.'

  Darke nodded. For the first time in many months he felt like he was taking positive action. He felt like a soldier again.

  'Oh, and I'll take this. Don't want you accidentally blowing your own head off now, do we?1 The Doctor took the sniper rifle from Darke, and quickly stripped it down to its component parts, pocketing the ammo clip and telescopic sight with a flourish.

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  'Get your skates on, Emily,' he said, as he passed the remaining components to the stunned woman. With that he was off, striding along the corridor towards the main doors, ignoring the confused glances of soldiers filing into the hall for breakfast.

  Emily shrugged at Darke, and hurried after him.

  By the time she'd caught up, the Doctor was halfway across the wintry compound.

  'Where are you going?'

  'Up there.' The Doctor pointed enthusiastically, energised by the few pieces of the puzzle that were falling into place. The Castle tower.

  From the top we'll be able to see right into the Cathedral grounds, the Abbey, everything.'

  'But the Cathedral is one of the most open places in the city. I've heard the locals talking about how supportive the Bishop has been over the past few months, how helpful.'

  There's an interrogation technique, used all over the galaxy, where law-keepers play off each other to get a confession out of a prisoner. Here they call it "Good Cop/ Bad Cop". Well, they will do one day. Anyway, that's what they're doing here. The Sheriff and the Devil's Huntsman keep the people scared, while the Bishop offers them hope. It's a pretty extreme example, I'll give you that, but what a way of diverting attention from your real base of operations if someone turns up asking awkward questions.'

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  By now they were inside the tower, racing up its spiral stairs. As they burst into the early daylight, the lone watchman at the top was dismissed with a flash of psychic paper, and the sniper rifle's telescopic sight was back in the Doctor's hand.

  'Right then, let's see what we can see.'

  The Cathedral was less than a century old, and it's vaulted stonework remained as crisp and sharp as the day its masons had packed away their tools. The pollution of the coming industrial age was yet to eat away at this shining example of medieval craftsmanship, and the Doctor marvelled at the engineering prowess that enabled the construction of such buildings with little more than manpower and faith.

  Scanning the tower, he soon found what he was looking for. A small, unobtrusive disc, mounted near a high window. A neural transmitter, as suspected, its emitter array focused squarely on the main building in the Castle grounds.

  There you are. Basic, off-the-shelf hardware, by the look of it.

  Directional beam, with a limited range. They must've had it primed to take control of the new Sheriff before he'd had time to settle in.'

  'Why didn't they just take control of the previous Sheriff?'

  'People knew him, they would have noticed he'd changed, whereas the new bloke could be as odd as a limestone muffin and who'd bat an eyelid? Nobody trusts the new boss.'

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  The Doctor lowered the rifle sight and absently scratched his head. 'Why doesn't any of this seem remotely Krillitaney?'

  At the Doctor's shoulder, Emily was also observing the building, scanning across the site with her binocs, watching priests and monks going about their early morning business in the Cathedral grounds. The Doctor could spend as long as he liked searching for answers; the whys and wherefores of the Krillitanes were no concern of hers. Emily knew exactly what she was looking for.

  'Like those killings,' the Doctor mumbled, thinking aloud. 'Out in the open, no regard for the consequences. The Krillitanes are usually way more subtle, picking off people who won't be missed, orphans, the homeless, rats. They'd be sorted for rats here. Plenty of rats.'

  Emily focused on a group of monks as they were approached by a tall, corpulent priest who had just emerged from the shadows of a doorway.

  He spoke to them animatedly, and pointed to the south. Emily squeezed the shutter repeatedly, hoping to get as many of their faces filed on the device's data drive as she could.

  She almost dropped it in shock when the alert for a positive ID

  flashed luridly on the screen.

  They might be bloodthirsty, imperialist villains, but they have a degree of respect for whoever they're invading, even the ones that don't stand a chance.' The Doctor tapped the rifle sight against his chin. What was he missing?

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  Barely aware the Doctor was still talking, Emily blinked to make sure she wasn't imagining things. Adjusting the controls, she flicked through the image files until she found the correct one.

  The message in her display continued to flash, the words blurring as tears threatened to overcome her.

  IDENTIFICATION: POSITIVE

  TARGET: CONFIRMED

  It was the tall priest who had sparked the alert, but the image wasn't quite clear enough for her peace of mind. Snapping back to camera mode, she zoomed in on the big man's fleshy, well-fed face. Despite his relaxed demeanour and avuncular appearance, his eyes were hard, alert, unpleasant. Emily almost laughed to think she'd mistaken the Doctor for this man, they were so very different. She had found him at last. Lozla Nataniel Henk.

  Emily felt a hand on her shoulder.

  'You're trembling,' said the Doctor, concerned. 'What's wrong?'

  'Nothing. Must just be the cold,' Emily lied, turning away, and busying herself returning the binocs to her bag. When she glanced nervously back towards the Cathedral, Henk had gone.

  'Emily, if there is anything you need to tell me, anything you know about what's going on here, now would be a good time.'

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  Tm sorry, Doctor, I have to go,' she said, pushing past him towards the stairs.

  'What? Emily, wait...'

  Emily paused at the first step. She could stay, help the Doctor. Finish the job personally. But no, she didn't have the stomach for it. She would leave that to her employers. She looked back over her shoulder, and tried to smile. 'You were right, Doctor, I shouldn't be here. Time to leave.'

  A few moments later, as she hurried across the yard and out of the Castle into the awakening city, she could feel the Doctor's concerned eyes following her. Emily didn't look back. If the Doctor wanted to protect this planet from a pack of hungry aliens, that was his business. It was nothing to do with her. She'd done what she had to do, and she wasn't going to stay here any longer.

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  SI X

  t had been a bad night for Mister Henk, and he was in _no mood for Ifurther trouble.

  Lynch had been stupid, he'd allowed Toeclaw to get too close, and had paid for it with his life. On the plus side, now Lynch was dead there was one less dividend to be paid out, and the share destined for Henk's own pot would be that bit larger.

  Unfortunately, the loss of one man also meant the loss of a more valuable asset. By now, Toeclaw would be dead.

  Each of Henk's people had a personal life-signs monitor strapped to their wrist, and the alarm had been raised the instant Lynch's heart had stopped beating. They'd had time to trigger the emergency failsafe, firing a pulse of lethal energy from the inhibitor implant that 81

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  usually ensured the Krillitane remained under their control. Henk relished the thought of the treacherous creature twisting in pain, crashing to certain death as she fled for her life.

  The loss of Toeclaw would be a major problem for the successful completion of the project, but not an insurmountable one. The most important thing as of now was to retrieve her corpse before one of the stunted, semi-evolved natives came across it. That would never do.

  Standing in the shadow of the Cathedral, unaware that he was being observed from the Castle tower, Henk addressed the team he'd selected to carry out this mission.

  'Find the body and bring it back here. Be discreet, and don't return before nightfall -we need to keep the legend of the Huntsman well and truly alive, so we don't want the locals catching a glimpse of the corpse, do we?'

  The four men made noises of agreement and pulled up the hoods of their monks' robes to obscure their faces as they left.

  Henk spat a ball of Bacco onto the ground, sniffed disdainfully and went back inside.

  Branlo, the spotty young comms technician who had somehow become Henk's right-hand man by default, intercepted him as he stalked through the cloisters.

  'Mister Henk, I'm afraid we have another problem.' Branlo paused, nervously, not wanting to make his overbearing boss any angrier than he already was.

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  'Well, come on. Out with it, lad. I don't imagine one more disaster is going to make very much difference.'

  'We recovered Lynch's body...' Branlo stammered. 'It was... He was in a bit of a mess.'

  'So would you be if you'd been foolish enough to let one of those ugly monsters get close enough to give you a kiss. What of it?' Henk had no time for prevarication. This was a big day, and so far nothing was going according to plan.

  Branlo paused before continuing, his mouth dry. 'His Implant Control Terminal was missing. It wasn't on him or with his personal effects.'

  'Why is this a problem? If a native found it, they'll probably use it to ward off some imaginary demon, and if Toeclaw took it, well, she's not going to be using it any time soon, is she?'

  'It's just that, I was going through the data from last night, I thought it might help locate Toeclaw's body, and I found this...'

  Branlo passed his datapad to Henk. The screen showed a topographical representation of the city, heat signatures from the smallest rats to the groups of soldiers on night patrol. Then, out of nowhere, a phenomenal flash in a quiet part of town.

  'An energy spike.' Henk gritted his teeth, and an animal growl began to rise from the depths of his chest. In a flash, he grabbed Branlo by the neck, slamming the terrified technician against a stone pillar, legs dangling a full metre above the tiled floor. 'And no one thought to

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  mention this at the time? Who was on duty?' Henk spat, his fingers tightening around Branlo's throat.

  'It was Archa. He was... distracted. It only lasted a millisecond, anyone could have missed it.' Branlo's voice was thin, rasping, he could barely choke out the words.

  'Archa? That stimulant-addled waste of space? I knew he was a liability.' Henk released his grip, letting Branlo drop to the floor, where the boy coughed, gasping for air, wishing he'd followed his father's advice and gone into racketeering.

  There's more,' Branlo croaked. 'Shortly after the spike, we get heat readings on someone non-Terran in exactly the same spot. Two hearts, look. It's possible they found the controller...' He lifted his datapad weakly in Henk's direction.

  'I'm not interested in possibilities, Branlo. I want facts. Find out where our visitor went next, and tell Archa I'm taking back two percentage points from his dividend.' Branlo nodded as he dragged himself painfully to his feet, but Henk hadn't finished. 'Someone teleported in last night, and if they turn out to be hostile then tell Archa he'll be getting one final dividend cut from me, and I mean very final. Get out of my sight.'

  Branlo scurried away, glad to have been dismissed with nothing worse than a bruised neck.

  Henk thundered into the nave.

  More bad news. It seemed that despite a rigorous recruitment process, he had surrounded himself

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  with amateurs. Now there was this unexpected and unannounced arrival, despite the extensive precautions he'd taken to ensure that only invited guests could find their way to this planet. There would be time to look into it himself soon enough. First, though, he had to make sure the stock hadn't been disturbed by the recent turn of events.

  Stopping by a door at the foot of a short flight of steps, he retrieved a set of heavy keys from the depths of his robes. Henk selected one and pushed it into an iron mortise lock that kept the entrance to the crypt secure. The mechanism clunked reassuringly, and he stepped into the darkness beyond.

  Another flight of stone steps led to a small antechamber, dimly lit by the screens of a monitoring station and a desk lamp. Belima Febron, a middle-aged, blue-skinned Velurian woman in medical overalls, looked up from her book at the sound of the visitor.

  'Mister Henk. I trust you've not uncovered any more murdered staff this morning?' She smiled.

  The day is young, my dear, and my patience has already been sorely tested. By lunchtime, I may have murdered a few of them myself.'

  Henk was almost joking. He liked Febron. She wasn't afraid of him, which made conversation so much more tolerable. Furthermore, it was her genius that had made this project possible, and would soon make him very, very rich.

  'How are our guests?' Henk peered at the grainy images on the monitors.

  It was difficult to distinguish between

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  what were merely shadows among the stone pillars and the dark, crooked shapes hanging from the ceiling.

  Febron leaned past Henk, and touched the largest screen, dragging the view of one security camera to the main area. The life-sign data immediately populated an area to the left-hand side, and even Henk's untrained eye could tell they were fluctuating wildly.

  They're always unsettled when the dominant female is taken out, but this one seems to have realised her return is overdue. I've increased the suppressant dosage, but he's one of the more productive specimens. I don't want to push it too far.'

  'Still, we don't want him agitating the others.' Henk went to the small cabinet beside the door that separated this room from the crypt, and pulled out a long plastichrome pole. As he thumbed the activation switch on its grip, the other end of the pole sprang into life, sparks of plasmic charge jumped between electrodes at its tip.

  'Open the door, if you'd be so kind.'

  Febron did so, and followed Henk into the crypt proper, past rows of heavy, breathing shapes in the half-darkness all around them.

  Unit twelve was the only beast Henk was concerned with: 'Broken Wing' as the men had nicknamed him, after they'd shattered the main cartilage in his left wing as he'd desperately fought to evade capture.

  Henk stopped just before the silent Krillitane. Its wings wrapped tightly about its body like a cocoon.

  'You're not sleeping. I can tell. I can see you tremble.'

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  he said, softly, unconcerned, taunting. 'You know she's dead, don't you, your Brood Mother? She crossed a line, so we fried her brain.'

  With a roar of impotent rage, Broken Wing's back suddenly arched, and he twisted towards Henk, teeth bared, snapping open and closed.

  Henk didn't flinch, watching calmly as the creature writhed before him, spitting and snarling, arms restricted by thick chains binding wrists to ankles, by pipes, wires and cables snaking away from its body towards the silent, blinking technology.

  'Now, now,' Henk admonished, raising the plasma lance and casually increasing its power discharge. His eyes glistened, maliciously, in the white light of its sparking tip. 'If
you won't behave, Daddy will have to punish you.'

  Febron quietly turned and made her way back to the antechamber, ignoring the agonised screech of the Krillitane male echoing amongst the pillars.

  That should cool Broken Wing's temper for the foreseeable,' Henk sniffed, deactivating the lance and replacing it in its locker.

  Working at the monitoring station, Febron busied herself fine-tuning the delicate balance of stimulants and sedatives flowing into the now unconscious Krillitane. 'He'll live, but his productivity is going to suffer. Did you have to go quite so far?'

  'I've already lost one member of staff. If the stock get 87

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  it into their heads that we're weak, then more of them will attempt to follow in Toeclaw's footsteps. Now they'll think twice,' he told her, slamming the locker door shut to emphasise his point. 'We're close enough to the end of this phase of the project to temporarily take a hit in production levels.'

  'I'm more worried about the tour. You don't really expect me to do a presentation, do you?' The scientist was genuinely dreading the prospect.

  Henk chuckled. 'You lend gravitas, my dear. Authority, scientific integrity, and you could charm the tentacles off an Octulan.'

  Febron sighed. There would be no getting out of this. 'It's not their tentacles I'm worried about. When do the first delegates arrive?'

  They should all have arrived by this evening, all being well. We've already received a coded signal from our Calabrian friends. They will be making planetfall in a matter of hours.'

  Picking up her book and settling back in her chair, Febron smiled at Henk. 'Let's just hope we don't have any further mishaps along the way then, eh?'

  'You keep your mind on keeping things ticking over down here, and I'll worry about the bigger picture.' Henk patted the scientist softly on her shoulder. 'Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to make a quick call.'