Lethal Planet Read Free Page A

Jason scanned the gloom. He couldn’t see any of the rest of the squad.
    Then something appeared out of the mist.
    At first Jason thought it was one of the marines coming back, but it was taller, slimmer, with legs and arm jointed in all the wrong places. When it revealed itself, less than five metres away, Jason could see that it was a bird …
    … a featherless bird, with dangling metre-long claws where you would have expected to see wings. Its sinewy body was black, with strange ripples of glowing blue. Its beak, like its claws, was long and thin, and it snip-snapped open and closed like a pair of giant scissors.
    Jason was rooted to the spot in horror. The creature stepped up and wrapped its claws around him like a cage.
    Then, with a deft snip of its beak, it severed Jason’s right arm at the shoulder.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    03— CYBORG
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Jason almost rolled off the bed when the Majestic lurched suddenly. The ship dropped around five metres, then rocked back and forth for a good thirty seconds.
    Jason tried to remember where he was. Brandon and Kat were looming over him. His sister was trying to lay him on his back again. He shrugged her away and sat up. He recognised the retro wooden panels and funky light fittings of the Chrysler Building’s nineteen-thirties interior.
    ‘Why are we still on the ship!’ he exclaimed. ‘We’re hanging in the treetops. If we don’t get off, we’re all going to crash to the ground. And I’ve had enough of crashing for one lifetime!’
    Kat tried again to push him down. ‘We’ll get off in a minute. Just lie still, would you. Brandon is trying to perform an operation.’
    Jason tried to bat his sister away with his arm …
    … but it wasn’t there.
    Then he remembered the horrific bird thing. Jason howled in wordless frustration, anger and rage.
    ‘Keep still, will you!’ Brandon urged. ‘I’m trying to use the bionoids to get this arm to stay on.’
    Suddenly there was hope after all. ‘You can put my arm back on?’
    Jason saw Kat and Brandon exchange a worried glance.
    ‘Well …’ Brandon began. ‘Sort of. It’s not exactly your arm.’
    ‘After you fainted,’ Kat elaborated, ‘the bird alien thing picked up your arm in its beak and ran off with it!’
    ‘What?!’ Jason’s anger surged again. He turned his head to see what Bandon was messing around with. Attached to his right shoulder was a new arm … a robot arm.
    ‘Wait a minute!’ Jason said. ‘That’s …’
    ‘Saoirse’s arm,’ Brandon confirmed. ‘It’s amazing. The circuitry maps almost perfectly onto the neural network of the zelfs. I can used the bionoids databases of zelf and human DNA to translate the appropriate—’
    ‘I’m not having Saoirse’s arm!’ Jason shouted. ‘She killed Gem. Brandon, how can you do this? She killed your sister! ’
    ‘I’m doing it,’ Brandon said with a scowl. ‘Shut up and be grateful.’
    Jason flopped down on the bed. How could he be grateful, when all he felt was pain and guilt? The strange alien’s glowing body had somehow hypnotised him; he hadn’t been able to even raise his gun, let alone fire it.
    Then he remembered. ‘The squad! What happened to everyone else?’
    ‘All dead!’ Kat said. ‘The birds took the heads off some, and the legs off others. They bled to death before Brandon could save them.’
    ‘Ah damn it, Brandon, you’re just as useless as I am. What about Hewson?’
    ‘Alive,’ Brandon said. ‘He lost his right arm too, though.’
    Jason thought about this for a second. ‘Okay, so hold on: why are you giving me the robot arm. Give it to Hewson! He’s best soldier we’ve got! He’ll need it more than me.’
    ‘Stop being so noble,’ Brandon said. ‘I chose to give it to you. So live with it!’
     
    * * *
     
    The convoy rumbled along the great wide road of the alien tree branch. Jason drove the leading MTV— Multi Terrain Vehicle —a big, green six-wheeled truck, with a