eugenesis-text

abyss. ‘That’s not biomesh – something’s built into the cliff.’ The beams picked out rigid troughs and fuse
patterns, a fat vein of sealant and another slab of rock.
‘Kaal There’s something on the radar. Something’s coming towards us.’
‘Impossible.’
‘Look at my face and tell me I’m lying. Take us up, Kaal!’
The propulsion jets rolled bubbles across the viewscreen as the pod grudgingly changed direction.
The radar repeated its one shrill syllable.
‘It’s coming after us!’ Plyn screamed. ‘It’s picking up speed!’
The darkness outside seemed to split into moving shapes, and the blackest lunged towards the pod.
Search beams danced across an open mouth, sidestepping molars and incisors, pistons and blade-beds. Kaal
screamed, Plyn screamed, and the pod exploded between snapping jaws.
He landed badly, face-first and limb-locked, his elbows kicking up sparks as they hit the ground. For a
moment he wondered whether he was still on Junk, whether Unicron’s time portal had been nothing more
than a jumping hoop. But no – there was no heat, no noise, and neither Cyclonus nor Scourge were
anywhere to be seen.
Death’s Head lay face down, waiting for the stretch and tug of temporal dislocation to settle. Damage
sensors whispered sweet nothings in his ear, rhapsodising about severed ternums and shattered solenoids - a
eulogy to pain and inner waste. His smouldering cloak flapped angrily in the wind; he listened to that
instead, then rolled onto his back and waited for internal repairs to kick in.
The sky, too, was busy re-stitching itself, and quickly smoothed itself down. In seconds, all trace of
his arrival had been erased. He sat up and straightened a buckled jaw-spike, happy that the wave of systemsickness
had passed.
‘No wonder Cyclonus and Scourge aren’t here,’ he said into a microphone in his thumb. ‘Time
travelling without due care and attention is dangerous enough - entering the chrono-crossroads propelled
by a five-megaton explosion is damn near suicidal. Given their mode of departure, my targets could be
anywhere and anywhen. Waste of time trying to track them down.’ He snuffed a flame that was nibbling at
the hem of his cloak. ‘In light of this, mission 534 is closed indefinitely.’
He stood up and looked around. In front of him, a carapace of solar panels stretched towards the
horizon, dappled by midday light. ‘No idea where I am, but tech-level is pushing grade seven. Possibly an
Empire world, judging by its pure metallic composition and apparent lack of inhabitants - maybe a
Dominator outpost.’ He looked in the opposite direction and brought his thumb to his mouth. ‘Scratch
that. I’m standing on Hybridia, on the Outer Ridge.’
The view had changed: the solar panels had been replaced by hills and valleys, by bush and bracken
and freshwater lakes. Beyond a swaying tree line was a silver metropolis, clad in ivy.
‘Make that tech ten, maybe higher. Don’t know what year it is yet.’
He closed his personal log and rifled among the debris, all thoughts of his last hit forgotten. The
Hybridians were rich. They were the most prosperous traders in the galaxy, in fact, with enough capital to
purchase entire civilisations. He knew of freelance peacekeepers who had retired after being hired by them,
although such lucrative contracts only went to the very best. Universally renowned peacekeepers (like
Abslom, Fett and the legendary Weavers) were offered the majority of Hybridian work, usually because it
was so dangerous. A Hybridian payoff was an endorsement, an advert. If you didn’t want to give up the
game, you were guaranteed work for life.
He’d never been offered work by the Hybridians. A contract had passed under his nose in 2007, but
before anything was signed a rival mercenary had blown the whistle about the Cybertronians, the time
jumping and the ‘arm incident’. (He wondered if he’d ever live it down.)
He found his shield and hammered out a dent, admiring the Elpasian handicraft. Blotches of colour
suddenly appeared on his forearms, and he blinked at a disc of light a few hundred metres above his head.
He sketched the outline of a shuttlecraft, silent enough to crouch without sound (even the nearby trees
were unruffled by its presence). ‘Tech 12,’ he said in awe, and then a voice trickled down from the
heavens.
‘Death’s Head. We want to make you an offer.’