Fleet of Knives

by Gareth L. Powell

  “Bloody hell.”

  “And you were going to cut your way in here and loot it for whatever you could find.”

  “That was the plan.”

  Lucy shrugged her shoulders, as if appealing to the figures towering above us.

  “It seems those ancient Nymtoq builders weren’t the only ones with a hubris problem.”

  * * *

  Emerging from the grove of statues, we found ourselves standing on the lip of a wide shaft.

  “Holy crap,” Addison said. “That must be a least a kilometre deep.”

  Lucy was still holding my hand.

  “Which way?” I asked her.

  She pointed. “Upwards,” she said. “About forty metres.”

  I twisted until I could see up the shaft. The rounded walls seemed to rise to infinity.

  Bernard was beside me. He said, “Is there a transit tube or an elevator or something?”

  Lucy shook her head. “No, this is the only way.”

  “Well, how did the Nymtoq get up there?”

  “They flew.”

  The accountant gave a snort of derision. “Well, in case it’s escaped your attention, we don’t have wings. We ditched the manoeuvring packs, and we don’t even have AG harnesses.”

  Lucy flinched away from his raised voice, hiding behind my legs like a frightened child.

  “Hey!” Addison said. “That’s enough, leave the kid alone.”

  Bernard scowled at her. His cheeks were flushed and his hands gripped his rifle. I thought for a moment he might take a swing at her, but he wasn’t the type. Instead, he walked back the way we had come, and squatted down with his back against the corridor wall, muttering to himself.

  “Besides,” Addison called after him, “if any of us could afford AG harnesses, we wouldn’t have had to take this stupid job in the first place.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  ONA SUDAK

  The Fleet of Knives shared reports with me. From all over the Generality came news of the white ships. The footage had been spliced from onboard cameras and third-party newsfeeds. Wherever they struck, they struck hard, and without compassion. Projected onto the inside wall of the spherical bridge, I saw pictures of nuclear missile silos vaporised from orbit; armed merchant vessels eviscerated without warning or mercy; military shipyards bombarded into clouds of glittering debris; and orbital defence platforms swept aside like dry leaves before a forest fire. And all I could think was: good. After thousands of years of violence and struggle, we would finally have to learn to behave in a civilised manner. The weapons with which we had terrorised ourselves for centuries—the weaponry of despotism and mass murder—were finally being wrested from our hands.

  Beside me, Alexi Bochnak watched the projections with his mouth hanging open. He hadn’t been allowed on the bridge before. Now he was here, his eyes were big and round behind the thick lenses of his antique spectacles.

  “Jeez Louise,” he said, scratching his belly through his hockey shirt. “This is all happening right now?”

  “The signals are displayed as they’re received.”

  “Wow.” He shook his greying head. “It’s one thing to talk about disarming the human race, but quite another to see it happening in front of you.”

  I was standing at ease, with my feet apart and my hands clasped behind my back. The Fleet’s bear-like avatar had provided me with a simple snow-white uniform, devoid of insignia, and a matching pair of pale leather boots.

  “You study history,” I said. “Well, this is what it looks like while it’s in progress.”

  Bochnak leant on the rail surrounding the dais on which we stood.

  “It’s… mind-blowing.” His hands were trembling. “I just hope to God we’re doing the right thing.”

  I pursed my lips. On the screen I happened to be watching, a pair of marble ships carved chunks from a small, weaponised moon in orbit above a cowed, subjugated planet. Under their onslaught, the mass drivers and missile launchers that had kept the population enslaved were being reduced to glowing slag, and the military elite that had constructed them burned in their domes and bunkers.

  “Let me tell you a story,” I said. “Before I joined the navy, I lived with my mother on a small farm, tending goats. We had few modern comforts, and little contact with the wider world. Our water came from a well, our electricity from a wind turbine, and we cooked our food over a grate in the fireplace. My learning came from real, physical books rather than the information grid, and my mother, who saw her share of conflict and upheaval during the corporate land grabs of the early 2230s, told me she’d brought us to the mountains because she’d lost faith in humanity’s ability to control its own technology.” I paused for a breath. Bochnak didn’t say anything, but was plainly wondering when I was going to get to the point.

  “She considered people stupid,” I continued. “She said they talked of high-minded ideals, of peace, fairness and equality, but for all their supposed ingenuity, the only things they were really good at inventing were new ways to exploit and kill each other. That’s the reason she thought so many of them yearned to believe in gods and saviours: deep down, they knew that left to their own devices, they’d never be mature enough to solve their own problems or cleave to the ideals they claimed to champion.”

  I watched on another screen as a single white ship went up against three Outwarder cruisers. The battle was short and fierce, but the outcome never seriously in doubt.

  “What would she make of all this?” Bochnak asked, waving his hand at the projections. “Would she approve of what we’re doing?”

  “Perhaps, but I doubt it. She never approved of anything I did.”

  “Am I sensing some bitterness here?”

  I shrugged. “We haven’t spoken since I signed up for my first tour of duty. I’m not even certain she’s still alive. For all I know, she might have fallen off that mountain decades ago.”

  I fell silent, no longer caring if Bochnak understood the point I had been trying to make.

  On the walls around us, the fight for peace raged on.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  SAL KONSTANZ

  We decided to take the Trouble Dog’s shuttle over to the Restless Itch. The shuttle was new: a stocky grey and blue armoured space plane designed for operation in challenging environments. It was a replacement for the previous one, which had been destroyed during the incident in the Gallery. The seats were still wrapped in protective plastic film, and the cockpit had that new shuttle smell. Clay and I took up positions on the seats in front of the control console, and waited while the Trouble Dog cycled the air in the shuttle hangar.

  To pass the time, I put in a call to Preston in the infirmary.

  “Are you in position?” I asked.

  “All prepped and ready,” he said. “Standing by to receive casualties.”

  “I don’t know how long we’ll be, but the ship will keep you updated and let you know when we’re on the way back.”

  “Aye-aye. And, Captain?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t be away too long. After that ‘prank’ in the museum the other day, I’m not sure I trust the ship right now. I certainly don’t want to be alone on board any longer than necessary.”

  In my peripheral vision, I saw Clay roll her eyes heavenwards.

  “You’re not alone,” I told Preston, hoping he couldn’t hear the smile in my voice. “You have Nod and the little ones.”

  “Great.”

  “See you in a few hours.” I cut the connection. Outside the shuttle, the hangar was now in vacuum. Red warning lights revolved on the ceiling.

  “Shit,” Clay muttered. “That boy needs to man up and grow a pair.”

  “Oh, leave him alone.” I shrugged a shoulder. “He’s not so bad, when you get used to him.”

  She turned to me, one eyebrow raised. “You’re only saying that because he follows you around with those big sad puppy-dog eyes.”

  “He does not!”

  �
�Does too.”

  “Well, it’s not like that.” I scowled. “At least, not from my side. I just feel bad for the kid.”

  “What have you got to feel bad for?”

  “Well, I did put a six-inch tungsten slug through his old man’s head.”

  Clay gave a snort. “Oh yeah, that would do it. But his dad was a psycho. You did the universe a favour.”

  “Maybe Preston doesn’t see it like that.”

  “Then why’s he imprinted on you like a baby duckling?”

  “He’s just young. But he’s getting better.”

  “No more late-night knocks on your cabin door?”

  “Certainly not.”

  Clay held up her hands. “Hey, I’m not judging you.”

  “Bite me.”

  Below the shuttle, the hangar’s outer doors slid apart, revealing a rectangle of darkness.

  “All systems nominal,” the Trouble Dog spoke in my ear. “Ready for departure.”

  Clay was still watching. I stuck my tongue out at her. “Okay,” I said to the ship. “Take us out.”

  * * *

  The shuttle rang with audible clangs as fuel lines and air hoses disengaged and withdrew, slithering back into recesses in the bay’s walls and floor like snakes fleeing a forest fire. Hydrazine vapour caught the light, streaming from manoeuvring control thrusters on the shuttle’s belly.

  Although Clay and I were both perfectly capable of piloting the shuttle, we’d decided to let the Trouble Dog guide the smaller craft on this flight.

  With a puff of its thrusters, the shuttle started to drop. It passed through the open doors until the great bronze mass of the Trouble Dog seemed to hang above us like a monstrous artillery shell. I’d had this view of her at least a hundred times, yet I still couldn’t help admiring the functional sleekness of her curving hull, the solidity of her weapon emplacements and sensor blisters, and the symmetrical arrangement of her torpedo tubes and drone hangars. Even with the sixteen-pointed star of the House daubed on her flank, there could be no disguising her intended purpose. No missile had ever been so exquisite, no gun so dangerously alluring.

  I was proud to be the captain of this incredible machine, proud to call her my friend and sister, and prouder still she’d had the strength and determination to renounce the role for which she’d been designed. Starlight glittered on her hull. She was a creature of vacuum, perfectly at home in the lethal emptiness of open space.

  “Are you all right, Captain?” the Trouble Dog asked. “I’m picking up signs of an ambiguous emotional response.”

  I smiled. “I’m just admiring you from the outside.”

  “And how am I looking?”

  “Pretty sharp.”

  “Do you know what I think I need?” The Dog’s voice grew serious. “Fins. Fins are cool. I’d look awesome with fins.”

  According to Clay, the Trouble Dog resembled Zeus’s own suppository, but I preferred to think of her as a flint arrowhead, fired by a goddess into the very heart of Death.

  And no, I still have no idea why the Trouble Dog tolerated Clay’s wisecracks. Maybe the old machine found something endearing in Clay’s service record. After all, they’d both served as grunts in a war neither instigated. Although on opposite sides of the conflict, they’d both given almost everything in the name of duty. And perhaps she found some amusement or camaraderie in their shared cynicism. All I knew was they had a relationship I couldn’t begin to fathom.

  Or could I?

  I felt a shiver prickle my skin.

  The Dog and I were sisters because we’d both lost those we’d loved, and we’d both sought to atone by seeking to preserve the lives of strangers. Could Alva Clay claim the same? Could this hard-assed ex-marine be searching for some way to make right the sacrifices of her past?

  I suppose it was a stupid question. Of course she was trying to make amends for the things she’d done. Of course she was trying to find a little peace. Why else would anybody join the House?

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  JOHNNY SCHULTZ

  Addison looked up the shaft and shouldered her gun. She tucked a strand of hair behind her right ear.

  “When that thing killed Kelly, do you think—”

  “What?”

  She made a face. “Do you think it ate her?”

  I didn’t know. I didn’t want to think about it, but I had seen one of those monsters eat one of their own. I had no reason to suppose they’d be squeamish about tucking into a human corpse.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “I can’t help wondering if she was still alive when it happened.” Addison hugged herself as best she could in a pressure suit, with a rifle held in one hand. “I mean, I know she was dying, but maybe she wasn’t completely dead when it started eating her. I don’t want that to happen to me. I’d rather shoot myself, or throw myself into one of these shafts.”

  I held up a finger. “I won’t let it come to that.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I have more ammo left than the rest of you.” Her brow creased. “So?”

  “So if you want me to, I can…” I trailed off, unable to articulate what I was offering. Suddenly the gun felt unwieldy in my hands. A weight as unwelcome as the responsibility of command.

  “You’ll shoot me?”

  “Only if there’s no other choice.”

  “Well, fuck you, Johnny Schultz.”

  “Yeah, and fuck you too, Addison.”

  She took hold of the wall and leant out, over the circular drop.

  “Race you to the top?”

  I smiled. Forty metres above us, on the opposite side of the shaft, we could see a wide aperture, from which spilled the lights of some sort of large, open space.

  “Damn straight.”

  We walked back to where the others were waiting, and explained the situation.

  “It won’t be easy,” I said. “But the walls aren’t smooth. They’re covered in padding, probably to protect the wings of the Nymtoq using the shaft.”

  “How does that help us?” Bernard asked.

  “The pads are each roughly a metre square. I reckon we can push our hands and feet into the gaps between them. Use them to make our way around the walls.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Would you rather stay here?”

  Bernard grimaced. “Captain, please believe me when I say I want to get out of this place every bit as much as you do. I just think this is a risk too far. And what about Santos? How’s he going to climb with a broken foot?”

  We both looked at the chef.

  I said, “Um…”

  I honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  “Perhaps we could rig some sort of harness?” Addison mused.

  Gil Dalton shook his head. “All that means is that if one of us slips, there’s a good chance we’ll all be dragged down. We’ll all fall.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” Her cheeks were red, but she kept her tone carefully controlled. Her feet were planted solidly, blocking the others from the shaft. “We can’t leave him here.”

  Dalton dropped his gaze. He had nothing more to offer. After a moment, Abe Santos spoke into the uncomfortable silence.

  “Actually,” he said, “you can.”

  “No,” I cut him off with a wave of my hand. “I don’t want to hear that. We didn’t leave you behind before, and we’re not going to do it now. We’ll get you out somehow.”

  The chef shrugged the shoulders of his battered blue spacesuit. He turned his attention to Lucy. “Is this the only way to the hangar?”

  The girl hesitated before replying, as if weighing her words. When she spoke, her pre-teen voice was curiously flat and devoid of emotion.

  “I’m afraid it is.”

  “Then you have no choice.” The big man looked me in the eye. “You’ll have to leave me here for now. Just give me a gun and some painkillers, and get to the shuttle. I’ll bet the crew has an AG harness with them. They can use i
t to come and fetch me.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. And be quick about it. I don’t want to be here by myself any longer than necessary.”

  “You won’t be.” Despite the cold, the inside of my suit felt clammy. I took a slow breath and said, “I’ll stay with you.”

  Santos’s expression softened. I saw him swallow back a rush of emotion. Then he shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but Dalton stepped between us.

  “If anyone stays with him, it will be me. I’m the doctor, after all.” He glanced towards the edge of the shaft. “And besides, I’m too old to be clambering around on walls. I’d only slow you down.”

  “But what if those things find you?”

  “What if they’re waiting at the top of your climb?” He gave a shrug. “We’ll have guns; we’ll be all right until you get back.”

  * * *

  I wasn’t happy about leaving either man behind, but their arguments made a practical kind of sense and we didn’t have time to stand around debating the issue. That meant four of us would be making the ascent. Faced with the reality of being left behind, Henri Bernard had swallowed his misgivings and agreed to come with us.

  “We’re going to have to strip off,” Addison said. “There’s no way we can climb in these suits.”

  “We’ll also have to leave all the food,” I said, “and anything else we can’t carry.” The rifles she and Bernard were toting each had a shoulder strap. Mine didn’t, so I left it with Dalton.

  We unfastened our suits and stepped out of them, leaving them in sad heaps on the smooth floor. All we wore beneath were the t-shirts and thin cotton jumpsuits we’d been wearing on the Lucy’s Ghost. I didn’t even have any boots on, having kicked them off in the panicked scramble to don the suit and abandon ship, and the polished stone felt like a cold bathroom floor.