Heart of Granite

by James Barclay

  About half way down, with the tail cycle cramping his takeoff zone, Max began to entertain the possibility that she might not get airborne. The chevrons and coloured support pillars seemed to amble by. There was no blurring at the periphery of his vision and there was no energy in her legs.

  ‘It wouldn’t look good if we made our escape on foot,’ said Max. ‘Wake up, princess, this isn’t one of those running- through treacle dreams.’

  He leaned in with his mind, knowing what he risked but fearing failure to escape more keenly. The potential of the upgrade was huge and he knew, without having to think or learn, what he could do. He sent her warmth and strength and sent her visions of the open sky, the sensation of heat on her back and memories of the joy of them flying free.

  Martha steadied and drove forward with renewed vigour. Max kept up the stream of sensory stimuli, mentally visualising the gauge of his own energy swinging steadily toward zero, like charge draining from a leaking battery.

  Martha’s neck stretched towards the free air, she moved fully into a take-off position and pounded down the runway. Max felt the press of acceleration. The painted white groundspeed zone was underfoot and beyond it, the take-off area. It was going to be touch and go.

  Martha reached the take-off point and snapped her wings out angled for maximum lift as Max directed. She dipped sharply down, her claws rattled across the ramp before, with a single powerful beat, she achieved minimum air speed and flew north under the drooping tail.

  Max kept Martha low, following the HoG’s footprints and deep tail. He didn’t think Kirby would order a spine cannon or a missile launch, but the lower their profile the better. Max’s heart was thundering away, every nervous, excited beat amplified within the pouch.

  ‘Long way to go, princess,’ he said breathlessly. ‘And we need a place to hole up.’

  Chapter 28

  There was so much still unknown but the programme went ahead anyway, imminent invasion being the mother of all expediencies. When would we truly learn the effects of mixing alien and reptilian DNA? And by extension the mixing with human DNA? Well, when those effects made themselves known, of course. Hardly a basis for coherent science but there was no alternative.

  Professor Helena Markov, ERC command logs

  Moeller took off his headset and walked back into his office. Beyond knowing things were about to get extremely difficult, he had little idea how to react. Fortunately, he had Kirby to crystallise his thoughts for him.

  ‘What the fuck was that about?’

  Moeller laid his headset down on his desk and poured himself a mug of coffee. Finally, he turned to see Kirby. The ExO had closed the gallery door and beyond him, the crowd was dispersing though few could resist staring into his office.

  ‘Want one?’

  ‘You tell him you’re sorry it’s come to this and let him go, and you want me to have a cup of coffee?’

  Kirby’s face was grey, his expression beyond anger and becoming fear as the consequences of Max’s escape settled on him. There was a slight tremble in his hands as they gripped the back of a chair pushed under Moeller’s meeting table.

  ‘That’s because I amsorry,’ said Moeller, knowing his determined calm would enrage Kirby further. ‘As should you be. This is the mother of all cockups and you’re in the flame wash.’

  ‘You’re loving this, aren’t you?’

  ‘As your rival for the next command position, I am delighted to see you self-destruct. As a flight commander who’s just lost his best pilot because you let your ambition cloud your judgement, I am disappointed, angry and profoundly worried about the consequences.’

  Kirby stared at him and a faint hope glimmered in his eyes.

  ‘It’s convenient for you that Halloran escaped, isn’t it? You even told him we’d track him, didn’t you? I wonder why.’

  ‘You’re living in a dream. There is nothing convenient about all the crap that is going to descend in the aftermath of Halloran’s escape. I wanted him to change his mind, to realise it was hopeless.’

  ‘Bullshit. You warned him. You as good as wished him bon-fucking-voyage.’

  Moeller took a sip of his coffee. It was fresh, hot and the perfect strength. Yarif was the best barista in the fleet. He smelled the aroma and let it calm him before he tried to slap the stupid off Kirby.

  ‘Save your puerile attempts to blame me for Avery and Solomon,’ he said. Kirby opened his mouth but Moeller cut him off. ‘We’re both in serious trouble. Your corner-cutting has led us directly here and I have the misfortune to be the flight commander who let an unauthorised drake off his flight deck. So thank you for that great scar on my record and how about we turn our attention to getting him back?’

  ‘There’s nothing to discuss. You’re going to turn Whiteheat around and send them after him. You should have already.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll put my coffee down and hit you after all.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No one is changing Whiteheat’s mission. It’s the sort of mission that helps win wars. Finding Max will only save your arse.We’ll adopt standard procedure for recapturing a rogue drake; there’s no hurry. He won’t escape tracker range in a day even if he flies nonstop.’

  Kirby straightened. ‘Only you reminded him to remove the drake’s tracker. After all, he’s already done it to his own suit. You have to react faster.’

  ‘The drake trackers can only be removed by a local surgical procedure. Max doesn’t have the tools to do it. And the delay is your fault: if you hadn’t bulldozed through your request for a tail-down then Lavaflow, who are on standby, would be on the runway already.’

  Kirby stared back down the flight deck, where the tail was almost down, when both their p-palms bleeped and vibrated simultaneously. Both men snapped out their screens and looked at each other.

  ‘The blame game begins,’ said Moeller. ‘Remember I know the truth.’

  ‘You’re about to learn how powerless you are. There’ll be no life for you beyond this behemoth if you don’t back me up.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning my friends are way more powerful than yours. I told you to think ahead, about after the war, and going up against me is a dangerous error.’

  Moeller drained his coffee and set the cup down. ‘Don’t threaten me, Robert, you really don’t have the intellect. Meanwhile, I don’t think Avery and Solomon want to be kept waiting. Shall we?’

  Max’s excitement quickly gave way to a more sober assessment of their situation. He was tired and had a headache building from the effort of keeping the stream of imagery going. Martha was beyond exhausted. Her fuel ducts were dry, she was hungry and she shuddered with every beat of her wings.

  Max kept them flying due north for as long as he could, trying to work out how long it would be before he was pursued and so how long he could afford to be on the ground conducting minor surgery. No time at all, really.

  Below them, the deep trough gouged out by the HoG’s tail looked ideal. Max tipped his hands out slightly and straightened his legs. Martha landed in the trench, rear legs almost buckling. She slewed to a stop, kicking up clouds of sand and came to an upright rest, rocking on her haunches.

  ‘Sorry, princess, but there’s something we’ve got to do before we go and hide where we can get some rest.’

  Martha almost purred. Max triggered the pouch release and clambered out. His limbs were shaking and his normally controlled slide down Martha’s body became a fall. He crumpled onto the packed sand, heaving in each breath like it might be his last.

  ‘Whoa.’

  Max dragged himself to a hunched sitting position. His body dripped with secretions and his hands trembled. He shook with fatigue and even the thought of dragging his suit off to get at the scalpel was an effort too far. His head was pounding and he was still concentrating on sending a sense of freedom and open skies to Martha, the thoughts fading slowly and unwillingly.

  He dropped his hands to find Martha’s head very close and her eyes sta
ring down the beautiful lines of her muzzle into his.

  ‘Sorry, princess . .. just need a moment here.’ Martha fired a foul lungful of stale air into his face. In addition to the obvious irritation, he could sense hunger too. ‘Point taken.’

  Max leant on the top of her muzzle and pushed himself to his feet as Martha shook her head, almost knocking him back on to the floor. The sun was only halfway into its climb but it was already a crushingly hot day and the cooling effects of Martha’s secretions were short-lived.

  The walls of the trough the HoG’s tail dug were taller than Max. He stared south as if straining to the limits of his vision would allow him to see her as a speck in the distance. There was no dust cloud on the horizon, indicating that she hadn’t moved.

  Max scrambled up the side of the trough to be greeted with a view of endless desert in every direction. There were no meaningful features, just rolling, wind-blown dunes, scraps of vegetation and an ocean of silent beauty. ‘Well, that clears up where we are, exactly.’

  Max slid back down and for the first time the disconnection between his life and the world through which he travelled was obvious. It was an uncomfortable sensation. The Heart of Granite was a windowless cocoon, a mobile hive with its grunts and pilots as its drones. They saw what they were told to see, flew where they were ordered to fly and were encouraged not to ask questions.

  It presented Max with problems. He had to keep out of the way of the HoG, the Ironclaw and the Steelback and had only his own rough calculations to give him safe corridors for flying. Worse, the landscape offered precious few opportunities to hide and that made the inevitable search for him far simpler. He wondered what Valera would do, what she’d say to him.

  The thought of his skipper triggered an uncomfortable slew of emotions. Max gazed up into the sky. He craved to be there but not alone, not without the radio chatter, the comfort of the squad around him and Kullani a wing span away. With what he knew about the Fall he could really help her now . . . but not from out here. Max cleared his throat and switched his attention south along the trough. If he strained hard, he imagined he could hear laughter in the squad room and his arms around Anna-Beth.

  Max shook his head. ‘Perhaps I should just go back and throw myself on Commander Avery’s mercy.’

  He felt a rough-edged jab in his back and turned around. Martha’s nostrils flared. She must have guessed what he was thinking. They stared at each other for a moment, then she moved her head, turning it to the right and tipping it up to expose the soft skin at the base of her ear slit, beneath which sat the tracker.

  ‘You’re not supposed to know it’s there, are you?’

  In response, Martha spat a tiny ball of flame into the sand where it fused a few square centimetres to glass, well, when it cooled it would be, sort of. Max frowned and began shrugging off his suit so he could get at the scalpel tucked against his left thigh.

  Pulling his weary arms from the suit and pushing it over his torso required a far greater effort than it should have and Max felt another twinge of anxiety. Kirby had done a number on them both and neither had the strength for much more.

  Max pulled the scalpel from it resting place. It had cut his thigh of course but nothing serious. He gripped the blade the way he’d seen surgeons do on the medical shows, his hands trembling slightly, and placed the tip on Martha’s body, stretching the scales away from the incision point with his other hand Her scales felt dry, having nothing of the slight oiliness of healthy lubrication. Across her body they ranged from dinnerplate sized irregular pentagons to the thumb-sized, tear-drop shapes beneath her ear slits. There was an artistry to how they meshed and moved, combining maximum protection with great flexibility. Max felt like he was about to commit a crime.

  ‘This won’t hurt a bit,’ he said.

  Max took a breath and pushed. The blade cut easily into the small section of scale-free flesh. Martha rattled phlegm in her throat but didn’t react otherwise. However, Max was treated to a sharp pain below his left ear that made him wince.

  ‘Very funny.’

  Max cut a slit big enough to accommodate his thumb and forefinger then laid the scalpel on the sand. He pushed into the fat below the skin, feeling the edges of the diminutive bioplastic chip almost immediately. Flesh had grown around it in places and an experimental tug proved fruitless.

  ‘More slice and dice, Martha,’ he said.

  He picked up the scalpel again and widened the incision a little. Martha rumbled and Max made some ineffectual soothing noises. He found the chip with thumb and forefinger again then began to edge the flesh away from the chip, gritting his teeth at every scrape and jerky movement.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Nearly . ..’

  He was treated to more prickly sensations under his ear and prayed he didn’t do Martha any more serious damage. He gave the chip another tug, feeling it give but for the back right corner. He slipped the scalpel in once more, he chip came free, and he found himself sitting on his backside in the sand, Martha’s baleful gaze upon him.

  Max slapped her muzzle playfully. ‘Here, take it out on this.’

  He tossed the chip on the ground, where Martha stared at it for a second then dripped fire on it, melting it to a puddle. No more tracker data, no more drake cam feeds either. Max felt a momentary smugness.

  ‘Bye bye, Kirby,’ said Max.

  He rubbed the top of Martha’s head and scratched her under the chin when she displayed it for him.

  ‘What now, eh?’ he said, though the answer was as glaring as the sun. ‘Move on, stay under the radar and find a place to rest. What could be simpler?’

  Solomon’s quarters contained a small meeting room with a wooden table schematics of big enough for six, three walls hung with behemoths designed for desert, ice and rainforest, and a fourth dominated by a big screen. Moeller found himself staring at them a good deal in an effort not to enjoy Kirby’s discomfort too much. After all, it would be his turn soon enough. What concerned him most was that Avery had so far said nothing at all. That was never, ever a good sign.

  ‘Thank you for your version of events,’ said Solomon in the wake of Kirby’s report. ‘You clearly have quite a talent for fiction.’

  What little colour remaining in Kirby’s face drained away. ‘I assure you this is wholly accurate—’

  ‘I asked you to perform two tasks,’ snapped Solomon. ‘They weren’t hard. I didn’t ask you to perform a solo take-down of the Maputo armed only with a box cutter, did I? No. I asked you to keep one pilot in the most secure medical unit on this behemoth and to ensure his drake’s digestive tract was emptied and remained that way. So you’ll understand I’m a little taken aback that you failed in both.’

  ‘He had help,’ said Kirby weakly.

  Solomon stared at him. ‘Deduced that all by yourself, did you? Most popular pilot, unjustly imprisoned, I mean what were the chances, eh? Of course he had help! And why isn’t every possible suspect already in the brig being questioned? Why is that sly bitch Orin still in her rack?’

  ‘Because she had nothing to do with Halloran’s escape,’ said Moeller, immediately wishing he’d kept quiet.

  ‘Oh, really? I’m in the company of not one but two master detectives, am I? Enlighten me, Sherlock . .. no, you’re more Costa Khan. He can be Sherlock. How did you reach that astounding conclusion?’

  ‘Orin and her squad were confined to quarters the entire time, as ordered by the ExO.’

  ‘Like that makes one turd of difference.’

  ‘Plus I know her, and you don’t,’ said Moeller evenly.

  ‘Oh really? And what do you think we’d find if we pulled their encrypted coms, eh?’ said Solomon. ‘Here’s what will happen. Pull in anyone who had contact with Halloran, anyone with anything to gain from his escape. Get pressure on that upstart who fed the drake because I want to know who told her to do it. When we’re done with staff, I’ll be sending people into the flesh tunnels.’

  Moeller hissed in a breath.


  ‘Problem?’ snapped Solomon.

  ‘Ma’am, we need the Blammers, however fucked up that is.’

  ‘But, and I get the irony, they’re not above the law. A crime has been committed here and we will find and punish the perpetrators. Do I make myself clear? Good.

  ‘Next, Nicola. Since I can’t trust either of these two to tie their fucking shoelaces, you will lead the search and recapture of Hal-X. Presumably you already have resources committed. How long until you have him back here?’

  Commander Avery finished tapping on her p-palm before leaning back in her chair. Moeller could feel Solomon’s temperature rise.

  ‘We will remain on station as per the current published schedule. A standard grid search has been authorised and given the drake tracker location, we anticipate a successful outcome today. If not, we will pass the search on to the support forces behind us and move on. Should Halloran or his drake remain missing for three days, they will be recorded as lost, presumed deceased. As you are aware, our attack on the Maputo must take place within the next two days or the window will close.’

  ‘That is entirely unacceptable,’ said Solomon. ‘This behemoth goes nowhere until we have Halloran back on board.’

  Moeller cleared his throat, half-expecting a frost to form on his breath so cold had the room become.

  ‘This is my behemoth,’ said Avery quietly. ‘And I have orders to fulfil.’

  ‘I am changing those orders.’

  ‘With all due respect, ma’am, you may not do that without first consulting the joint chiefs of staff.’

  ‘Three smart arses in the room, just what I need. I will have their confirmation of those orders by dusk. This behemoth will not move.’

  Avery shrugged. ‘As you wish. Then for the record, and I will send all necessary supporting data to the joint chiefs, in my opinion the Heart of Granite will be unable to fulfil her primary mission parameters due to the imminent failure of critical systems and habitat priorities. She’s already gasping, Alex, we’re right on the edge. We have one chance to attack the Maputo and then we’re hauling for the Red Sea.’