Max Rage Read online

  Rage rolled his eyes. “If you weren’t a bolt butt, Bolt Butt, I’d think you were jealous. But bolt butts can’t get jealous because bolt butts are made of bolts and butts and have no feelings.”

  “Perhaps not in a human way, no,” Watchdog said, his eyes flashing red. “But you underestimate me and the others that live and work on this ship. We are capable of our own type of…feelings, for lack of a better word.”

  “Good for you guys. Is there a point to this advice? Don’t deceive you. So? Okay. I won’t deceive you.”

  “I will find that corpse and I will find out why you disposed of it,” Watchdog said.

  “Oh, right, the corpse. Fuck, Bolt Butt, I’d completely forgotten what we’d been talking about. You distracted me with all that bullshit about bot feelings. Next time, stick to the subject.” Rage stood up. He finished his drink and tossed the empty glass to Watchdog; the bot caught it easily. “In fact, how about we don’t have a next time? You stick to your job and I’ll stick to mine. I’m not here to entertain your lady and I sure as shit won’t be disposed of when she’s tired of me. I got a job to do, I’ll do that job, and then I’ll be on my way under my own power. You can pretend to be your lady’s knight in rusted armor all you like. I do not care.”

  “Where are you going, Rage?” Watchdog asked as Rage walked to the lounge’s door. “I am not finished with you.”

  The bot was on Rage in the blink of an eye. A metal hand clamped onto Rage’s shoulder and spun him back around.

  “We must discuss the next step in this job you have been hired to do,” Watchdog said.

  “You’re gonna want to let go of my shoulder,” Rage said then winced as Watchdog’s grip tightened. “Ain’t gonna warn you again, Bolt Butt.”

  “Stop calling me that,” Watchdog growled.

  “Alright. Let’s just do this,” Rage said and grabbed Watchdog’s arm.

  He lifted, twisted, and used his body as a lever to toss the bot halfway across the lounge. Then Rage straightened up and put both hands to the small of his back.

  “Damn, you are one heavy son of a bitch,” Rage said.

  Watchdog was already preparing his counterattack before he hit the floor. His legs coiled then sprung against the thick, luxurious carpet, sending the bot flying back at Rage.

  Rage didn’t think, he acted. He brought his fist back and slammed it against Watchdog’s head as soon as the bot was close enough. The sound of every bone in his hand breaking filled the lounge, but Rage didn’t even flinch. He smiled as the bot dropped hard and fast onto the ground. Then he winced as the bones in his hand instantly began to knit back together.

  Watchdog scrambled upright and glared glowing red eyes at Rage.

  Rage shook his healing hand and frowned.

  “God that itches when it heals,” Rage said as if Watchdog hadn’t attacked him. He looked at the enraged bot. “We done here or do you want to tussle some more? Because I’m fucking exhausted and just want to hit the sack.”

  “We still need to discuss the job, Rage,” Watchdog snarled.

  Rage smirked. “If you had lips, I bet one would be all curled up right now. You should have your lady install lips on that ugly metal mug of yours. At the very least it’d make you fun to look at it.”

  “The job, Rage.”

  “Sleep first,” Rage said and widened his stance, ready for the next attack. “I’m shot to shit, Bolt Butt. You can talk about the job all you want and all I’ll hear is wah wah wah wah wah. Let me rack out for a couple hours and then I’ll be able to pay attention to your jabbering without nodding off. Can you hack that? A couple hours?”

  “I would prefer not to,” Watchdog replied.

  “Jesus… Yeah, I know you’d prefer not to, but I’m saying, as a living being here, that our stupid discussion will be more productive if I’ve had a couple hours sleep. You understand what productive means, right? Working in the most efficient and expedient manner.”

  Watchdog cocked his head.

  “I’ve cracked open a dictionary before, so stop looking so surprised,” Rage said. “I am now going to turn around and walk out of here. I will then walk my tired ass to my quarters and fall onto my bed. There will be sleep then there will be waking up. Might be some breakfast when I wake up. After all of that then you and me can have our pow wow.”

  “Pow wow?” Watchdog asked.

  “Old Earth term. Totally racially inappropriate, but now that there are a hundred different alien races to discriminate against, who cares, right?”

  “Your race would not consider you a good person, would they?” Watchdog asked.

  “No one has mistaken me for one yet,” Rage said and flipped Watchdog off. “Night, Bolt Butt.”

  And he was gone out the lounge door before Watchdog could respond.

  Thirteen

  Rage knew things weren’t right from the second he opened his eyes.

  He hadn’t been on an Earth Corp ship in years, so to find himself standing on the bridge of one, dressed in full combat armor, was kind of a tip-off that perhaps he wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

  Then things began to click into place as he looked down and saw that his combat armor was dripping with alien gore and the blood of his dead teammates.

  “Master Chief Sergeant Major Rage, you will stand down!” someone off to his left shouted. “I am ordering you to stand now or you will be eliminated!”

  “Or you will be eliminated…” Rage played those words over and over in his head as he continued to stare at his stained and dripping combat armor. “I know those words.”

  Rage slowly turned his head and saw the captain of the Earth Corp fleet ship Hanskui standing a few feet away, a large pistol aimed at Rage’s head. A grin slowly spread across Rage’s face. It was a slightly confused grin, because Rage was more than certain he’d already done this whole scenario before, but it was still a grin.

  And he was grinning simply because Rage knew he was going to kill the son of a bitch that was stupid enough to be pointing a weapon at one of Earth Corp’s most highly trained killing machines.

  “You’re gonna want to put that away,” Rage said to Captain Kapa Jones. “Put it away and I make this quick. Keep pointing it at me, and I’ll yank that from your hand and shove it up your ass. I may or may not pull the trigger once it is inserted in your butt. I might let you suffer with that muzzle jammed half a meter into your colon while I crack the skulls of all these pussies that are sitting in their seats cowering like the trapped rats they are.”

  Rage shook his head.

  “No, sorry, that was an insult to rats. You all are more like gnats. Little bugs that need to be swatted and smashed into broken wings and yellow pulp.”

  The comms officer squeaked and fainted at his station, tumbling from his seat and onto the floor. A floor that was quickly covered in piss as the man peed his uniform while he curled up into the fetal position.

  “He gets where this is all going,” Rage said and pointed his chin at the terrified officer. Then Rage returned his attention to Captain Jones. “How about you, Captain? You get where this is all going?”

  “Yes, Rage, I get where this is all going,” Captain Jones said. “With you in manacles before a firing squad.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think you’re paying attention right now,” Rage said, the words echoing in his head as he simultaneously said them and remembered saying them.

  “Stand down and walk away from this mistake with some honor intact, Rage,” Captain Jones said.

  “Honor? You’re talking to me about honor?” Rage snarled. “You’re the guy that refused to send in air support as my team was getting shredded by the goddamn Scritch. Those cockroaches ripped my men and women apart. Literally. Tore their arms off, their legs off, their heads off. They ate them. Then you refused to let the only survivor, me, return to the Hanskui. Tell me, Captain, where’s the honor in that?”

  “I had my orders, Rage. We all have our orders. Air support would have pushed the expense of this
mission into the red. Earth Corp does not tolerate missions in the red,” Captain Jones protested.

  “Yeah, this mission is in the red alright,” Rage said and raised his fists for all to see the blood that coated the armored gloves. “And it’s about to get a hell of a lot redder!”

  Captain Jones fired, but the blast ricocheted off Rage’s armor and bounced around the walls of the ship’s bridge until it struck the navigator in the left ear, sending scorched and melted gray matter shooting out of her right ear. The captain tried to fire again, but Rage was already on him, grabbing the man’s arm and snapping it in half. The pistol clattered to the floor and Rage stomped it into a useless hunk of metal and plastic.

  “They’ll fry you for this!” Captain Jones shrieked as he stared at his mangled arm. “You think you’re so fucking special, Rage! You aren’t! They can make more of you! They have warehouses filled with vats of abominations like you all across the galaxy!”

  “That so?” Rage asked as he jammed his fist through the captain’s chest. “You got addresses? I’ll be sure to send them Christmas cards each year. Family’s gotta stick together, right?”

  He pulled his fist back and smiled at the gaping hole in the captain’s body. Then Rage punched the man’s head right off and that was that.

  The bridge was in chaos. Crew members were screaming and shouting for Rage to stand down as they lifted pistols, rifles, and even a couple of chairs. Laser blasts hit Rage in the chest, the arms, the legs, but they were completely ineffective.

  He laughed at the insignificant stings the blast produced. It wasn’t that the lasers were even damaging the armor, just that it was designed to sting the wearer so he or she knew they were being shot and to adjust their offense accordingly.

  Rage adjusted his offense accordingly.

  He ran at the closest two crew members and slammed their heads together, crushing their skulls into one bloody mess of bone and hair. The bodies dropped and Rage picked up one of the fallen pistols. He set it to overload, stomped over to the next closest crew member, and shoved the humming weapon down the man’s throat.

  The man’s neck and chest exploded after a second. Rage smiled at his handy work.

  The smile disappeared as a chair hit the back of his head. Rage had taken his helmet off when he reached the ship because it was shorting out and bugging him. While the blow to the back of his head didn’t do any damage, it did kind of hurt which really pissed Rage off.

  He spun and snatched the chair out of the terrified woman’s hands. She shrieked and tried to flee, but Rage brought the chair down on her, splitting her skull open and shearing off her left arm. She was dead before her body hit the floor.

  A laser blast singed the top of Rage’s right ear and he snarled as an ensign stood across the bridge from him, pistol gripped in two shaking hands.

  “Shoot yourself,” Rage said, his voice calm and matter of fact. “Seriously, kid. Shoot yourself in the head. It’ll be a lot better than what I’m about to do to you.”

  The ensign didn’t even hesitate. He turned the pistol around and jammed the muzzle against the underside of his chin.

  “No, you idiot!” Rage shouted as the ensign pulled the trigger.

  The young man’s jaw, nose, and brow were vaporized, but the blast didn’t kill him. He fell onto the floor, screaming in agony as he wriggled around, his hands almost, but not quite, touching the devastation he did to his own face.

  Rage stomped over to him, snapping the neck of a fleeing officer along the way, and stood over the screaming ensign, bloody hands on bloody hips.

  “Look at what you did,” Rage said. “You have to angle the pistol so it is aiming at your brain, idiot. Jesus…”

  Rage lifted a boot and brought it down hard and fast, crushing the ensign’s skull. He twisted and ground the bone under his boot, sneering the entire time. Then he grew bored and turned to face the bridge once more.

  “Who’s next?” he called out.

  But he was no longer on the bridge of the Hanskui. He was standing in front of the panel of judges for his court-martial, his hands and feet manacled tightly together. The room was dark and silent except for the buzz of electricity that ran through the manacles. Rage wondered how many people died before the techs figured out the correct voltage for the manacles to be able to keep someone like him secured.

  “Master Chief Sergeant Major Max Rage!” the center judge bellowed. “You have been found guilty of murdering the command crew of the Earth Corp fleet ship Hanskui. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “None of this is real?” Rage replied. Except that wasn’t what his mouth said. His mouth said, “I did what needed doing. You should thank me for thinning the herd a little. Bunch of bureaucratic jackholes and pussies were running that ship. Running Earth Corp too. Maybe you all should think of cleaning house.”

  Rage wanted to wake up, he knew he was in a dream, but his mind wouldn’t obey. So he rolled with it.

  “We have your sentence ready to hand down,” a second judge said. “If you are thinking of begging for mercy from this court, you can think again, Rage. There will be no mercy for you!”

  “Did you not hear what I just said?” Rage asked, his voice in stereo since the real Rage had actually said those words and Dream Rage said them too. Both Rages laughed.

  “Do you find this funny?” a third judge asked.

  “Which part?” Rage asked.

  “You are a sick human being,” the first judge said. “If you can even be called a human being. Earth Corp should never have created the likes of you. Man was not intended to have what you possess.”

  “Rugged good looks and always fresh breath?” Rage asked. “That’s kinda petty of you to say, don’t you think?”

  “Silence!” the first judge shouted. “We will now read your sentence!”

  The judges picked up tablets that were on the table in front of them. They lifted the tablets in unison then opened their mouths to speak. Their mouths snapped shut as one and they each blinked at their tablet screens.

  “Um…the suspense isn’t killing me, but I am curious how I’m going to die,” Rage said. “You worthless hunks of pus want to clue me in here or what?”

  The first judge cleared his throat then looked to each of the other judges before he set his tablet down.

  “As decreed by Earth Corp, you have been sentenced to five years hard labor after which you will be set free,” the judge said through clenched teeth. “Upon your release, you will not be allowed to work in the military or law enforcement industries. Other than that, your life will be your own to lead.” The judge swallowed hard and ground his teeth together. “I have been ordered to tell you to have a nice day.”

  “You too, asshole,” Rage said. “Kind of sucks when you find out you have pretty much zero control over your life, doesn’t it? Welcome to Earth Corp, fucknuts.”

  Rage’s manacles crackled with electricity and he fell to his knees as shock after shock coursed through him. He smelled piss and burning hair, but was only certain that the burning hair was his. Rage had a strange feeling one of the judges had pissed his or herself.

  Then his eyes popped open, his real life eyes, and he found himself staring up at a perfectly round alien with four legs and two arms. The alien was pissing on his chest.

  “What the fuck?” Rage roared and punched the alien.

  The alien giggled, stopped peeing, and rolled itself out of Rage’s quarters, leaving the big man soaked in alien urine with the remnants of real memories and dream memories kicking around in his head.

  “Note to fucking self,” Rage said as he got out of bed and headed straight for the shower. “When you get a good gig as a bouncer and have a sweet-ass hot girlfriend that is also your boss, do not take stupid ass jobs even if the cops force you to. This shit sucks.”

  Fourteen

  “There’s Mr. Sleepyhead,” Lisha cooed as Rage walked into the dining room. “I bet you’re hungry after yesterday and all that sleeping.”
She gestured at a buffet table loaded with platters of all sorts of food. “Help yourself, big guy. Gotta keep that bod strong and tight.”

  Lisha sniffed, frowned, then sniffed again.

  “Is that pee I smell?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Rage said. “Some rolly polly alien piece of shit pissed all over me. I’ve showered five times and still can’t get the smell out of my skin.”

  “Oh, you’ve met Cuddles,” Lisha said. “He’s my pet. Sorry about the pee. He likes to mark new guests as his. It’s a silly, harmless affectation of his.”

  “Fuck him and his affectations,” Rage said as he mounded food onto a plate then sat down opposite Lisha. “That thing gets near me again and I’ll rip it apart.”

  “Oh, that won’t be possible, Max,” Lisha said. “Cuddles is an Askerdon. They’re indestructible. Only reason the galaxy isn’t overrun with them is they have a short lifespan.”

  “Which I’m gonna make even shorter when I catch that little shit,” Rage said.

  “Did you not hear me say he was indestructible?”

  “I heard you. I don’t care. Lots of things I’ve killed have been called indestructible. Turned out they weren’t.” Lisha only smiled blandly at Rage. “Whatever. I thought you only had bots on board. No living creatures.”

  “No living crew,” Lisha said. “The crew are all bots. I never said—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Rage said and shoved a forkful of food into his mouth. He coughed, swallowed hard, then shoved a second forkful in. “This is good.”

  The plate was empty in less than a minute. Rage belched and got up for more.

  “Two more days until we reach Sporkon Five?” Rage asked as he piled his plate even higher than the last serving. “I meet this team of yours then we set off for…?”