Read Hardcore - 03 for Free Online Page B

shit! It just won't leave me alone! Tell it, Keenan, go on, tell it!"
    "Tell it what?"
    "Tell it to go away!"
    "Why?"
    "It's latched onto me. Is like a bloody parasite. A leech sucking on my testicules."
    Keenan grinned. "Well, it's not the first dog to do that."
    "Oh har har, don't start mate, I ain't in the mood."
    "How was she? Did you get to party?"
    The interruption came from a young soldier, in front of which Franco had so inelegantly pushed.
    "Eh?"
    The soldier smiled, and it was a smile filled with superior knowledge. "The alien you took home last night. You were going for a dance, and stuff. How was she?"
    Franco's face had formed a painful rictus of pain. " What alien?"
    "The one we tried to warn you about. Franco mate, you were so out of it you just waved away our advice like annoying drug smoke. She was called Amil. She was a Prakku."
    "A whattu?"
    "A Prakku. They're a marine-based alien lifeform."
    A disconcerting image flashed into Franco's mind. He instinctively grabbed his groin. "Um?" he said.
    "I've heard of them," said Pippa, eyeing Franco carefully. "Said to be human on top, but..."
    "But what?"
    "Kind of fishy down below."
    "What do you mean, fishy?"
    The door clanged open. "NEXT!" bawled a hefty female sergeant with biceps like slabs of ham and a No.1 shaved head.
    Franco was dragged into the cubicle. The door clanged shut, but they could still hear the exchange.
    "Drop 'em."
    "But... I'm not wearing any underwear!"
    There came a big sigh. "Why not?"
    "It's a long story. About fish, apparently."
    "Gods, there's always one, isn't there?"
     
    The Rapid Offence SLAM Cruiser Rearward Entry howled down the docking hole and hit space in glorious... silence. Like fleas on a dog, it carried three precious DropShips attached to its underbelly as it left a trail of purple carbide pollution in its fast curve from the Titan Pleasure Cruiser Razzle towards the glowing ball that was Sick World...
    Krakken IV.
    The Planet of the Damned.
    Once a glistening jewel in Quad-Gal's crown, the Sick World had originally been at the pinnacle forefront of medical exploration and research into the hybrid crossover diseases which mutated when humankind and alienkind finally clicked. Man, being predominantly a creature of fluid, had a weaker organic chassis than he originally anticipated and proceeded to collect and transmit a variety of interesting, challenging and downright dangerous diseases the minute he began his cosmological integration.
    And so, as Man spread enthusiastically across the Quad-Gal, eyes wide like a newborn kitten, he developed new diseases, ailments, organic oddities and deviations. As Man fucked and fought, bonked and bled his way across a new set of galaxies so the interesting mix of organics led to some really weird shit. Sick World was born, brainchild of Professor Malkus Malkovitch, original creator of The Great Malkovitch University down on The City. On Krakken IV, Malkovitch gathered together the greatest medical minds of the age, and the planet was divided into discrete sections across the weirdly shaped landmass of the three major stable land continents.
    Around the equator, the major, desert-like, rocky barren continent of Second Djio was given over to the exploration, research, quarantine and cure of rare conditions and diseases. South of the equator was nothing but deep green sea circumventing the globe, but north, on the verdant and lush mid-latitude continent of Kludek, populated by rich forests, lakes and beautiful thrusting purple mountains, were built the finest medical and surgical care and rehabilitation suites the mind could dream. And finally, far north, as the snow and ice began to eat the land, was the continent of Yax, a freezing wilderness given over to research, experimentation and confinement for those cases that were... not quite so simple.
    To all intents and purposes, the entirety of the planet Krakken IV became Sick World: the premier planet for curing mankind's and alienkind's