crouching woman. Chures and Valdaire?
Next to them stood something monstrous, a bloated mass of man and machine, frozen, arm outstretched.
'Kaplinski?' he said, amplifying all his visual feeds to get a better look at it. He couldn't see its face. He checked his iHUD; the links were still there from the old days, and if Kaplinski could use it, so could he. It took a moment for him to hook in. It was him.
Kaplinski was no longer human, he wasn't even Ky-tech any more. His body writhed with inconceivable technology, alive with power for which Otto could see no source. He tried to look out of Kaplinski's eyes, but something had him frozen solid, jamming up his iHUD and adjutant. Not for the first time, Otto was glad Valdaire was on his side.
There was a flicker in Otto's iHUD. Kaplinski's adjutant was rebooting, fighting off whatever Valdaire had attacked him with.
'Valdaire! Down!' he yelled via radio, not knowing if it was still jammed.
Something sinewy and sharp leapt out from Kaplinski's outstretched hand, spearing the Cossacks one after the other and retreating back into his body. The Cossacks fell. Kaplinski reached out to the figure on the floor.
Otto swung the Stelsco turret round. The twin-machine guns opened fire. The hardened glass of the train's exterior windows held for a moment before imploding under the rain of bullets. Kaplinski half turned, and Otto's amplified vision caught sight of his face; nothing but rage and hate there. So much for k52's great and noble project.
Kaplinski disappeared sideways as the bullets shredded his side and hurled him into a compartment. The side of the train disintegrated, leaving a gaping hole ringed with flaps of hardened carbon plastic and metal wobbling in the train's slipstream.
'Klein? Chures is down!' Valdaire spoke over the radio, airwaves cleared by the Stelsco's sophisticated comms suite, clearing aside the train's jammer. She stood and looked out the window.
'You're going to have to jump.'
'I can't make it.'
Otto tried to bring the car in closer. The railway was running over a level area, but still its embankment made it impossible for the Stelsco to keep close with anything approaching stability. The car ran up and down the slope, holding position for a second or so and then skittering sideways down the embankment. Valdaire crouched by the hole, arm out, the other supporting Chures.
Then Otto said, 'Wait.'
Lehmann was running up the train, head low, hands spread before him ready to catch himself should he fall, long rifle slung on his back. He jumped down into the gap between the carriages. Lehmann hacked his way through the flexible corridor linking the carriages with his combat knife.
Lehmann, get Chures and Valdaire off the train. Watch out for Kaplinski, something's happened to him, he thought out.
I had to kill two of them, Otto, he replied. I'm sorry. There was no other way.
Verdammt, thought Otto. Never mind, get off the damn train and watch out for Kaplinski.
Pistol grasped in both hands, Lehmann walked cautiously round the smashed compartment where Kaplinski lay.
'What the hell have they done to him?' said Lehmann, speaking on the radio now.
Otto saw the modified cyborg through Lehmann's feed. Kaplinski lay in a tangle of shattered plastic slicked with gore. His swollen form filled the compartment, feet sticking out into the corridor, torn flesh crawling with movement. Kaplinski stirred. Lehmann raised his pistol and fired twelve times, each round a heavy calibre explosive bullet, designed with military-grade autonomous machine units and cyborgs in mind.
Kaplinski stilled.
'I can't get through his thorax armour or his skull,' said Lehmann.
'He's still alive. Healthtech activity is off the chart. He'll be up and fighting soon. Get out of there now, Lehmann, you can't take him,' said Otto.
'Affirmative,' said Lehmann. He kept his eyes on Kaplinski as he skirted the wreckage in the corridor. One of Kaplinski's feet shuddered and drew swiftly into the compartment.
'Lehmann!'
Lehmann bent to Chures, looking over him with Ky-tech eyes. 'Chures isn't looking good, Otto.'
'Just get them out of there.' Otto watched via his IR as Kaplinski's massive bulk moved.
Shots rang out. Autonomous eye cams swivelled on the Stelsco, zooming in on the source of noise. Cossacks aboard the next carriage. More were working their way back, cautious for the moment.
They'd got out of the barracks carriage then. An alarm pinged on the Stelsco's sophisticated sensor suite — energy emissions from the flatbed, airbikes powering up.
Otto swept the Stelsco turret round, blasting with limited bursts around the windows the Cossacks shot from. They drew back.
'Lehmann! Now!' Kaplinski was pulling himself up onto his hands and knees. Blinding whiteness played around his form, massive energy consumption. What the hell was he drawing on?
Lehmann stood. Valdaire hanging onto him like a child to its father, arms round his neck, legs wrapped round his waist. Under his other arm he held the limp form of Chures.
Lehmann indicated via MT that he was ready, his face set in concentration.
Otto opened the two left doors of the Stelsco, leaving the entire side of the vehicle open to the elements. He had the rearmost door fold back and reconfigure, forming an armour plate protecting them to the rear.
On the count of three, thought out Otto. One. Two. Three.
He swung the drive wheel to the left hard. The Stelsco's folded back door caught on the train, shaking the car and ripping a chunk of shattered carbons from the carriage side.
Lehmann leapt, twisting and balling himself up as he came. He slammed into a comms station, taking the impact on his back, keeping it from Chures and Valdaire. The Stelsco swerved as he hit. Otto wrestled it back under control and shut the doors. Gunfire rattled off the vehicle's armour. Otto heard the low whump of EMP discharge and felt a residual surge in his systems, but the vehicle's faraday armour took care of most of it.
He pulled away from the train, the Stelsco bouncing madly as it left the embankment. Lehmann and the others, unsecured, slammed backward and forward, Lehmann doing his best to protect Chures and Valdaire as he slid across the cabin floor.
The vehicle skidded to one side as something big hit.
'Kaplinski,' growled Otto.
Kaplinski straddled the vehicle's nose, his face shredded, two insane eyes staring from his ruined face, his grin a death's-head rictus of bloodied teeth in shiny black bone, his lips stripped from his skull. The fingers of one hand were firmly wrapped around one of the Stelsco's forward sensor pods. The other formed into a fist. Roaring in pain and rage, the cyborg pounded at the Stelsco's armoured windscreen.
On the fourth hit, cracks appeared.
A pair of airbikes roared overhead. Twin lines of bullet impacts perforated the earth and passed over Kaplinski, knocking bits of flesh from him. He did not flinch, but continued to methodically smash his way into the Stelsco.
Otto brought the turret forward, right to the front of the roof. He brought it to its lowest elevation. Its eye cams were so close to Kaplinski the cyborg filled the view on Otto's iHUD.
'Goodbye, Kaplinski,' he said.
The guns opened up. At such close range, they would have pulverised a mountain. Kaplinski danced upon the Stelsco's rounded front, one arm up in front of his face. He came off the bonnet and bounced onto the ground. Otto was not sure if he jumped or fell.
In the rearview cameras, Otto saw Kaplinski stagger to his feet. A bright lance of energy, emanating from the train, hit him square in the back, and he fell. Otto lost sight of him.
The Stelsco hurtled across abandoned fields. The Cossacks had got into the air, and their airbikes raced overhead; it would not be long before others from the border patrols joined them, the only military units allowed in the DMZ. Lehmann and Valdaire wrestled Chures into a chair. Valdaire stumbled onto Lehmann, and he pushed her into another seat and strapped her in. Otto jinked as missiles streaked from airbike farings, the Stelsco's defensive
