Fleet of Knives

by Gareth L. Powell

  Wilkes’s artificial eyes swivelled towards her.

  “You do know that gun’s illegal on most planets of the Generality, don’t you?”

  “Bite me.”

  We stood looking at each other. Finally, Wilkes said, “So, what happens now? You can’t shoot me.”

  Clay raised her eyebrows. “Why not?”

  “Because.” Wilkes tapped the side of his head. “These eyes are relaying everything that happens. If you gun me down, my superiors will have video evidence, and you’ll be fugitives.”

  Events were threatening to spiral out of control. Before Wilkes and Clay could further escalate tempers, I stepped between them.

  “Nobody’s shooting anybody.” I motioned to Clay, who reluctantly lowered her weapon. “You’re free to go, Mr Wilkes. Just do me one favour?”

  The man lowered his arms to his sides.

  “And what would that be?”

  “Please tell your masters that it’s true the Marble Armada followed the Trouble Dog out of the Gallery, but that’s only because they’d been waiting five thousand years for someone to lead them and tell them what to do. As soon as we got back to Camrose we turned them over to the House, and we’ve had no contact with them since. So, don’t ask me who’s in charge of them, ask the House.”

  Wilkes bowed his head and stepped backwards. “Oh,” he said, “we intend to.”

  He gave Alva Clay a polite nod, turned smartly on his heel, and strode briskly back in the direction of the marketplace.

  When he’d vanished from our sight, I belatedly realised I still held his sunglasses in my hands. I dithered for a moment, then closed them up and slipped them into my pocket.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get back to the ship.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JOHNNY SCHULTZ

  As the others made for the airlock, Riley Addison and I picked our way down through the broken ship. We couldn’t take a direct route as most of the starboard bow section had been crushed, concertinaed bulkheads blocked a number of key corridors, and the forward cargo holds had been breached and were now open to vacuum. Instead, we would have to work our way down to the rear cargo hold, and then use a maintenance duct to access the engine room.

  As we clambered down the companionways between decks, I was glad of Addison’s company. She had a reassuring, unflappable quality that I really needed to be around. Everything had come apart so quickly, I’d barely had time to draw breath, let alone process the losses we’d suffered.

  It took us almost fifteen minutes, but we managed to reach the maintenance duct without incident. Addison unscrewed the fastenings holding the duct’s hatch in place while I signalled Gil Dalton on the wrist communicator.

  “We’re all here,” he reported. “All suited and ready to go.”

  “Excellent. We’re just about to crawl through to the engine room. I’ll update you when we’ve located Chet.”

  “Understood.” Patched through to the ship’s network from his helmet mike, his voice sounded echoic and flat. “Just one question.”

  Addison unscrewed the final fastening and pulled the hatch aside, revealing a long, dark tunnel.

  “Be quick.”

  “We’re all ready to abandon ship.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are we going? Aren’t we in the middle of deep space?”

  It was a good question. In all the flurry of the crash, I’d forgotten to actually brief the survivors.

  “We’re within range of the Restless Itch,” I told him. “We can jump over there and cut our way in as planned, and then wait there for a rescue ship.”

  Dalton said something, but static overwhelmed his reply.

  “Sorry, I didn’t get that.”

  More static.

  “No, you’re breaking up. If you can hear me, sit tight and wait for our signal.”

  Addison eyed the hold’s creaking walls nervously. “If we’re going through, we should go now,” she said.

  I cut the connection. The deck trembled beneath my feet.

  “Okay.” I motioned towards the hole. “After you.”

  Addison shook her head. “No way, José. You’re Lucky Johnny Schultz, you go first.”

  I made a face, and then crouched down to peer into the duct. It was roughly the width of a steel coffin. Along its length, some of the access panels were hanging open, trailing intestinal loops of wire and cable.

  With every instinct screaming at me to flee the ship before it fell apart, the last thing I wanted was to wedge myself in a confined space. Especially one with loose wiring and cracked steam pipes threatening to electrocute and scald me. If the ship’s structure collapsed, I’d be trapped or crushed, and if the bulkhead between here and the forward hold gave way, I’d most likely suffocate before having time to crawl free. If I’d been on my own, I might have turned back there and then. As it was, I could feel Addison’s eyes on me.

  I zipped up my jacket and smoothed back my hair. I rubbed my palms together and cleared my throat.

  “All right, then.”

  With a sigh, I pushed my head and shoulders into the duct. With my arms stretched in front of me and the jacket riding up around my neck and shoulders, it seemed far more cramped in there than I had supposed. Still, I couldn’t quit now. I tried bracing my hands against the wall in order to pull myself forward, but couldn’t get sufficient traction. Instead, I was reduced to squirming my way along on my elbows.

  After I’d gone a few metres, I heard Addison follow me.

  “Mind the grating on the wall here,” I called back. “It’s fucking hot.”

  “Don’t mind me,” she replied. “Just concentrate on moving. There’s only so long I can spend staring at the soles of your boots.”

  * * *

  We emerged headfirst into the engine room. Chet lay in its nest, its six limbs curled protectively beneath it. I crawled over and laid my hand on its iridescent scales.

  “Chet?” The flesh cringed beneath my touch, so I knew it was still alive. “Chet, it’s me, Johnny. I’ve got Riley with me. We’re here to help you.”

  One of the limbs uncurled like a roused serpent, raising its hand-face to mine. The fingers uncurled to reveal eyes like small black pearls, and a small mouth lined with prehensile tentacles.

  “Johnny?”

  “Come on, pal. The ship’s going to fall apart around us. It’s time to go.”

  I put my arms around it and tried to encourage it to stand, but it was too heavy for me to move alone.

  “Chet stay.”

  I looked back at Addison and jerked my chin, telling her to come over and help me.

  “Chet stay.”

  “Chet can’t stay.” I was panting with effort. “If Chet stays, ship go boom and Chet dies.”

  The little black eyes regarded me with impassivity.

  “Chet already dying. Leaking inside. Sleep soon.”

  “No.” I gave one last heave, and then fell onto my backside, defeated. “We can help you. But first we have to get you off the ship.”

  “Chet not moving. Can’t move. Too much damage inside. Can’t fix.”

  “But—”

  Another limb uncurled, and its fingers clamped onto my forearm.

  “I go to rejoin World Tree. Work done, now rest.” The pressure on my wrist increased. “But you take message.”

  I tried not to squirm out of its grip. “What message?”

  “Message for other Druff.” The body in the nest sagged lower. The scales seemed to have lost some of their lustre. “Tell them, Chet dead.”

  “We will,” Addison said.

  Chet’s raised face swivelled to look at her, like a cobra eyeing up a second intruder.

  “This important. Tell them white ships are cousins.”

  “What?” Addison looked confused.

  “Cousins,” Chet insisted. “Very important you tell.” A tremor seized it. Somewhere on one of the upper decks, something collapsed with enough force to crack the ceiling above our
heads.

  “I’m not leaving you here,” I said. “I don’t care if you’re dying, I can’t just walk away and leave you.”

  The force of its grip eased, and the arm withdrew beneath it again. Only the one hand-face remained visible, and it was swaying on the end of its arm.

  “You will tell them?”

  “Yes, of course. But what about you?”

  “I am content.” The fingers around the edge of its face began to close, like the petals of a dying rose. “Have nest. Good nest. Work done. All work done. Now sleep. Sleep, and dream of World Tree.”

  Its face scrunched into a loose fist, and withdrew into the depths of the nest. I looked at Addison, and it was clear she had no more idea what to do than I did.

  Overhead, the crack in the ceiling began to widen. Dust and lumps of debris pattered down onto the deck like the first grains in an overturned hourglass. Some fell onto Chet’s back, rattling against its scales, but it didn’t react. Beneath my palm, the rise and fall of its breathing had slowed. The pause between each inhalation stretched longer than the last, until the ragged wheeze began to feel like the last weary gasps of an expiring steam engine.

  And then it was gone.

  I tried to swallow back the distress that welled up, hot and solid in my throat.

  Addison put her hand on my shoulder. “Has it…?”

  “Yes.”

  I removed my hand from its cooling back, and wiped my eyes on my sleeve. Overhead, the ceiling gave another long, grinding creak, and part of it began to bow as if buckling beneath an immense weight. Addison regarded it apprehensively.

  “We can’t stay here,” she said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ONA SUDAK

  As the flyer hit the waves, the impact threw me against my restraints with a force that left me stunned and disorientated. For a few seconds I didn’t know where I was, or what was happening. Then the cabin started to fill with seawater, and I came to with a terrified start. We were sinking, and the men and women around me were making no attempt to escape. I tried to shout at them, but couldn’t make myself heard through the breathing mask and the rush of incoming water.

  We were way out in the ocean, far beyond the continental shallows. If we slipped beneath the waves now, the weight of the flyer would carry us all the way to the bottom—and even with breathing masks, we wouldn’t be able to endure the mounting pressure of that long, crushing fall.

  I gasped as the flyer lurched to the side and water slopped against me, soaking the legs of my prison uniform. Seconds later, we were completely submerged. I held my breath by reflex. My ears were filled with a surging roar. Through the goggles covering my eyes, I could see the others still motionless in their seats. What was wrong with them?

  My stomach went light as we began to fall. It was like being trapped in a flooded elevator, falling down a deep, unlit shaft. In the gathering darkness, I started rocking back and forth, trying to loosen the straps pinning me to my seat. If I could only get free long enough to escape the open hatch and kick for the surface…

  A shadow fell across us, and my heart seemed to stutter in my chest. We were being swallowed, falling into the blackened maw of some vast undersea monstrosity. I saw the lip of the opening pass us. We fell for a few seconds in pitch darkness, and then came to rest with a grinding crash.

  Lights came on around us, illuminating the interior of the cabin. We were on our side, hanging from our straps with our heads lower than our feet. Through the hatch, I could see we’d fetched up against a flat surface. I heard the clank and grumble of pumps, and the water level started to subside. My legs were the first part of me to be exposed, then my hips and hands. I could feel my skin prickling with the cold.

  Finally, my head was clear. The people around me were unstrapping and worming their way out through the hatch, where welcoming hands pulled them from the wreck.

  One of the women who had been sitting opposite came to loosen my straps and ease me down from my chair.

  “Quite a ride, huh?”

  She pushed me towards the hatch and I crawled out on hands and knees—onto familiar-looking deck plates.

  An officer was waiting for me, dressed in the uniform of a commodore in the Conglomeration Navy. As I rose unsteadily to my feet, he threw me a crisp salute.

  “Welcome aboard,” he said. “My name is Commodore Wronski. Do you know where you are?”

  I glanced up at the walls surrounding us.

  “At a guess, I’d say we were in the dorsal shuttle bay of a Hyena-class frigate.”

  He gave an approving nod. “Very good, Captain. Exactly correct.”

  The members of the squad responsible for my escape from prison were peeling off their masks and goggles. Conglomeration marines were guarding the hatch that led from this bay to the rest of the ship.

  “But, what are you doing down here?” My hands had started to shake with delayed shock and the effects of decaying adrenalin. “Why the hell is there a Hyena-class frigate submerged in the middle of the ocean? And why the fuck did we have to crash to reach you?”

  Wronski lowered his head.

  “I apologise for the lack of finesse,” he said. “We were working to a very tight, and very literal, deadline. As soon as they scheduled your execution, we knew we had to get you out.”

  I squeezed my fists to stop them trembling. Seawater dripped from my knuckles.

  “You didn’t have to shoot the priest.”

  “What priest?”

  “The military chaplain who was in the cell with me.” I pictured the poor man spinning around with the force of the shot that took him down. “You didn’t have to kill him.”

  Wronski frowned. “We couldn’t leave witnesses. But if it makes you feel any better, your chaplain died in the line of duty, for the greater good of the Conglomeration. I’m sure his gods will receive him kindly. As for you, history will record that you died during an unsuccessful escape attempt. Your flyer crashed into the sea. If anyone comes looking, they will be able to locate the crashed vehicle on the seabed, but your body—and those of your accomplices—will be assumed lost to the currents.”

  He gave a nod to one of the marines, who stepped forwards and draped a towel around my shoulders.

  “Now, let me show you below,” he said. “And let’s find you some dry clothes.”

  * * *

  Two marines led me into the innards of the ship. Hyenas aren’t large craft, and the walkways and cabins were much smaller than I had been used to aboard the Scimitar I had commanded during the latter stages of the war. Nevertheless, it felt good to be back aboard a naval vessel. The uniforms and equipment were familiar, and even the air carried the same pervasive and unmistakable tang of hot metal, fresh paint, boot polish and sweat.

  They led me to a stateroom, where they left me to take a shower and change into the crisp captain’s uniform and pair of boots that had been left on the bunk. I hadn’t worn a captain’s uniform since I fled the bridge of the Righteous Fury in the aftermath of the Pelapatarn incident (they certainly hadn’t let me wear one during my trial, at which I’d appeared in the dowdy threads of my prison uniform), and the roughness of the material, the stiffness of the collar and the weight of the insignia recalled incidents I’d been trying to ignore and disown for nearly four years.

  When I had fully attired myself, I examined my likeness in the mirror on the back of the stateroom’s door, but instead of seeing again the self I had discarded at the end of the war—the younger self I still could not quite bring myself to absolve—I saw my new face, the face of a poet, looking uncomfortable and out of place in such a uniform.

  As I stared at this partial stranger, another face appeared in the corner of the mirror. Gold-skinned, androgynous and strikingly sensual, with full lips and half-lidded eyes, it regarded me with the arrogance of a teenaged god.

  “Hello,” I said. “What’s your name?”

  The figure smiled.

  “I am the Conglomeration frigate Entanglement.
Please allow me to welcome you aboard.”

  “Thank you.” I ran a finger around the inside of my collar, trying to make it sit more naturally. “I assume you already know my name?”

  “Of course.” The avatar gave the barest suggestion of a nod. “But how would you prefer me to address you?”

  It was a good question. As far as the world was concerned, the war criminal Annelida Deal had just died in a crash.

  I met my own gaze in the mirror.

  “Can I still be Ona Sudak?”

  “I see no reason why not.”

  “Good.” It was a name I had chosen for myself, and an identity I had assumed for the three years between the Battle of Pelapatarn and the time I gave myself over to Conglomeration authorities.

  “Then I shall refer to you as Captain Sudak.”

  “Thank you.” I tugged at the hem of my tunic, straightening it.

  “You’ll have to forgive me,” I said, “but I don’t recall an Entanglement. Did you serve in the war?”

  “I spent the conflict seconded to Intelligence.” The golden avatar waved a languid hand. “But I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

  “And are you still operating in that capacity? Working for Conglomeration Intelligence, I mean?”

  Those luscious lips spread into a mischievous smile.

  “I think you’ve already figured that one out, haven’t you?”

  * * *

  The marines were waiting in the corridor. When they saw the uniform they snapped to attention, and I returned their salutes.

  “Take me to the Commodore,” I ordered.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SAL KONSTANZ

  We arrived at the port as the Trouble Dog aligned for her final approach.

  “Looking good,” I told her as she loomed over the perimeter fence.

  Lit from below by the runway lights, the heavy cruiser resembled nothing so much as a vast bronze bullet, albeit a bullet whose smooth lines had been distorted by the blisters that housed her primary and secondary sensor arrays and weapon systems. And with a displacement of ten thousand tons, she dwarfed the civilian traffic scurrying from her path.