Splintered Suns

by Michael Cobley

  By now she was listening to him closely. “What happened to Burlet?”

  “Didn’t make it,” Pyke said with a shrug. “Died of his wounds, very sad …”

  “Derv,” said Kref from over at the door. “Guests have arrived … gun bag’s next to the desk.”

  “That’s what I need,” she said, digging around in the big grey holdall, coming up with a blast-repeater. It was painted red with little yellow stars all over. As she rummaged again for extra clips, she said, “How’s that lock coming along, Ans?”

  “Getting there.”

  “Kref,” she said. “How’s those—”

  A fusillade of shots cut her off, and Moleg ducked to the side as the firing smashed splinters from the woodwork all around the doorway.

  “Return fire!” she said. “Keep ’em busy!” And with the blaster repeater held at chest level she turned to point it at Pyke … who already had a hand-beamer aimed at her. Noticing this out of the corner of his eye, a horrified Ancil said:

  “What the frack is going on? …”

  Pyke grinned. “Just finish opening that vault, Ancil.”

  “Don’t open that vault, Ans,” said Dervla.

  “Ancil,” Pyke said. “I will kill Dervla then Moleg then Kref if you don’t open the vault.”

  There was a thud, a tinkle of broken glass, and the tall windows flew open, revealing Raven Kaligari, hovering just outside, the nodes of an a-grav harness glowing at either shoulder. Steel-blue body armour, a gleeful smile curving beneath a battle-green goggle helmet, and one hand holding a broad-bodied weapon whose wide, flat muzzle had perhaps a dozen apertures. Dervla’s first impulse was to unleash a storm of rounds on the black-hearted bitchlet, but before she could act Raven flipped something with her thumb and a cluster of hair-thin beams stabbed out and around the room for an instant. Damn, she thought. Tagged.

  “… or it might be my associate who starts the shooting,” Pyke went on, voice now lacking any similarity to how it should sound. “You two at the doorway will keep firing at the guards, and you, dear Dervla, can now drop the gun and kick it away.”

  She gritted her teeth for a moment, then let go of the blaster. It clattered on the floor and she toed it off into the shadows.

  Not-Pyke chuckled. “Very, very good. Now, Ancil, attend to your work. Get the vault open.”

  Shots were still being exchanged over at the office door. Dervla crossed her arms, trying not to look at her captors, trying to ignore those smug smiles.

  “So, Dervla,” said Raven. “I see you’re still working with this bunch of losers.”

  “I see that you didn’t eat skag and die, despite my express invitation for you to do so,” Dervla retorted.

  Not-Pyke’s grin grew sharper but before a visibly galled Raven could respond there was a series of metallic musical pings and the vault door swung open. Dervla heard Ancil let out a shaky sigh. Then Not-Pyke produced the DNA key and handed it to him.

  “Locate the biovault, insert this in the small round hole, turn until it clicks.”

  He looks just like Pyke, Dervla thought. Is he a copy of some kind, or is that face a scan-repro, a mask? What if it really is him but some parasite like a Vor is controlling him?

  There was the briefest hiss-pop of pressure release. A moment later Dervla caught a whiff of stale, musty air.

  “You’re looking for a box or container about the size of the palm of your hand.” Not-Pyke leaned over Ancil as if ready to pounce. “… ah, that one … open it—yes, excellent! The box, if you please.”

  Tight-lipped, Ancil passed it back over his shoulder. To Dervla’s eyes it resembled a small ornate casket no bigger than her fist, carved from a strange white and green striated material. Not-Pyke opened it for a closer look and smiled a sinister smile that Dervla had never seen on that face before. Then he snapped it shut, straightened and with two sprightly strides reached the gaping window. Raven Kaligari still had her multi-targeting beam weapon pointing into the room as Not-Pyke climbed onto the windowsill and out onto the ledge. The ornate box he presented to the hovering Raven.

  “The Angular Eye, my dear—take good care of it!” Then with Raven floating behind him he turned and looked back at them.

  “You have all been outstanding, each and every one of you!” He had loosened his frock coat and was unfastening the buttons of his shirt. “No artist could wish for more committed and convincing co-actors, and that goes for Captain Pyke, even though he’s had no say in the matter! So take your bows and say your farewells … because this is his grand finale.”

  Through the entire speech Dervla’s suspicions had been growing wilder and darker. Part of her mind was yelling Plan B! as she watched Not-Pyke grope around inside his shirt while proclaiming those last demented words. Then his hand came out holding a small object trailing short lengths of bandage. By now he was balanced on the edge of the window ledge, staring over his shoulder at Raven; having stowed the Angular Eye out of sight, she was now reaching for this mysterious prize, multi-beamer still pointing into the overseer’s office.

  “Soon?” she said, face full of a hungry desire.

  Not-Pyke nodded. “Oh, soon—very soon!”

  Dervla watched as the mercenary then reached out and grabbed hold of one of the trailing bandages, upon which a smiling Not-Pyke opened his hand and let go of the unknown object.

  The next few instants were crammed full of incident, yet they seemed to happen in slow motion.

  As soon as Not-Pyke released the object his face changed—the smooth arrogance vanished and was replaced by shock, confusion, a disorientated panic. And Dervla knew, even as she dived towards the window, that this was the real Brannan Pyke. Fully expecting to be gunned down, she kept going, hearing a shot fired from her right—Ancil! Raven took a round in her arm, forcing a scream from her as she dropped the weapon and jerked back and spun away. Unsupported, Pyke lost his balance and toppled backwards off the ledge.

  Dervla yelled something incoherent as she vaulted onto the window and lunged towards him, in her mind thinking madly Plan B! Plan B! but knew she would never be able to fumble the flare from her inside pocket in time. Moving too fast, she plunged over the edge and fell head-first after him, close enough to touch one flapping fold of that ridiculous frock coat, close enough for their terrified gazes to meet, but not close enough.

  And out of the night-cloaked blurs far beneath something massive rushed up at them, an angled hardness that Dervla struck at speed. She spun through smeared glows and fragments of shouting. Then a slab of shadows smashed her in the head and everything went out, like a candle dropped into an ocean.

  Dervla awoke woozily to a pounding headache and a stinging pain on her upper forehead. She tried to lever herself up onto one elbow but a surge of pain made her gasp and sink back.

  “Hey, don’t go exerting yourself,” said a voice nearby. It sounded like Ancil. “Lie still—you took a bad smack to the skull.”

  Through barely cracked-open eyelids she saw blurry shadows cast by a buttery yellow glow, and an Ancil-like shape standing close by.

  “Okay, now you’re awake I need you to take a coupla caps for the pain.” He crouched down and carefully helped her into a sitting position. Pain throbbed in her head and made her eyes feel so gritty she could barely keep them open. Relying mainly on touch, she accepted a cup of water and two capsules, which she downed, then finished off the water in response to a sudden thirst.

  “Where are we?” she said, every word making her throat feel scratchy.

  “A canyon wall cave, a couple of klicks away from Cawl-Vesh,” he said. “Full of stone troughs and dried-out sticks and roots—locals used to cultivate and harvest food plants in all the caves, according to Narok.”

  “Ah, Narok!” She forced her eyes further open. “He came for us anyway …”

  Ancil gave an amused nod. “Moleg explained your Plan B.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “It was just a spur-of-the moment idea. I got Moleg to persuade Narok
to hang around in case we needed an emergency escape route, and told him to watch out for dropping flares …”

  “Uh-huh—Narok said there were no flares but when he heard the gunfire he got his grav-boat ready just in case. When he saw you and Pyke come flying out of a ninth-floor window he had to act quickly …”

  Dervla’s laugh sounded whispery. “What a pilot—catching us with his boat …”

  She paused a moment to cough dryly, and Ancil refilled her cup. As she drank the coolness down she heard no other voices, but there was a constant background sighing, a deep sound mingled with surges of faint hissing.

  “Is it windy outside?” she said.

  “Duststorm,” said Ancil. “Mild one, apparently, but it’s still creating enough skagging interference to block our comms. Have to sit it out before we can contact the Scarabus.”

  With eyesight gradually returning to something like normal, she saw how she was seated on a bedroll and leaning against the cave wall, positioned between two of the big stone troughs Ancil had spoken of before. The light had to be coming from portable lamps, she guessed, then realised that the air was actually comfortably warm. When she mentioned this, Ancil nodded.

  “That Narok is a good sort—left us most of his own emergency supplies before he headed back to the city. Captain says we should make sure he gets a bonus from Van Graes.”

  Dervla gave a wry smile. “So, how is Pyke? Don’t tell me that he walked away from that midair catch-of-the-day without a scratch?”

  Ancil rubbed his unshaven chin thoughtfully. “Eh, no, I’m pretty sure that one of his eyelashes sustained a serious fracture …”

  Dervla laughed softly then raised a hand to her head. “Oh, don’t make me laugh, please …”

  “Actually he wrenched his shoulder and picked up a bumper collection of bruises. If I had my field medkit I could’ve hypoed the both of you but it got left behind when Narok turned up with you two and we bailed double-time.”

  She squinted at him. “Has he said anything yet? About what happened since we last saw him?”

  Ancil shrugged. “Just said that it was a brain-gouger of a tale which everyone had to hear.”

  Another voice broke in. “Not least because I don’t think I could stand having to plough me way through it all more than once!”

  A familiar figure strolled into view, propped himself on the edge of one of the troughs and gave her one of those jaunty head-tilt-and-winks which always gave Dervla a thrill. Not that she’d ever tell him that.

  “Good to see yer on the mend there, kid,” Pyke said as Kref and Moleg came over to join them.

  “I’ll be feeling better if we still had that damned Angular Eye thing,” she said. “Can’t stand the thought of that rat-bitch getting one over on us, again! What are we going to tell Van Graes?”

  “The truth,” Pyke said. “Which will include something really bloody strange—Kref?”

  The big Henkayan dipped into his bulky, dark-grey surcoat and brought out a small round leathery object which he offered to Pyke.

  “No, no, told you, I’m never touching that thing again! Just hold it so Dervla can see it—pull it open but remember what I said …”

  “Uh-huh, ‘don’t touch the crystal with your bare skin’—I don’t forget, Chief.”

  Kref prodded the leathery object, teased aside a flap to reveal a pale, foggy looking crystalline artefact. It was bulbous with a small, tapered protuberance and a longer curved one like a blunt tine—it almost resembled the head of a bird or a reptile.

  “That’s the thing that you … whatever was controlling you … pulled out from inside your shirt,” she said.

  Pyke nodded. “It was open and pressed against my skin, held in place by sticky bandages.” A look of loathing passed over his features. “Just thinking about the thing—the things, inside it …” He shivered. “Okay, all of you deserve to hear the entire crazy yarn, even if it does sound like the ravings of a cranked-up geej-sniffer. So strap down yer brains—it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  (Pyke’s Account: Ten days ago, at the offices of Augustine Van Graes overlooking Lake Mirabeau, on the exclusive habitat, Firmament Heights, in orbit about Earth.)

  “Can we please, finally, come somewhere close to an agreement?” said Van Graes from behind his desk.

  Pyke, leaning against a leather armchair, looked round at Dervla, and said, “Yes, can we?”

  But she was, of course, wearing that embattled look which had not a shred of give in it, all defiant eyes and jutting jaw. Even though she was holding everyone up and aggravating their employer into the bargain, still Pyke thought that she was magnificent. Kind of awesome and sexy with extra awe.

  On the other side of the desk, an embellished monument in wood, Augustine Van Graes sat in a high-backed, unexceptional swivel chair, hands resting on the padded armrests. Beneath a head of bushy grey hair, old irascible eyes gazed out from a round but lined face whose skin had the shiny appearance you only got from rejuve treatment. Van Graes wore an archaic burgundy smoking jacket which fitted in perfectly with the dark panelling and the small antiquated lamps mounted in pairs around the room. There was nothing antique, however, about the thinscreen jutting out of the desk’s polished surface. Even without being able to see it, Pyke knew that there would be a contract, a number with a juicy row of zeroes after it, and boxes for six thumbprints.

  Dervla sat straighter in the low chair she’d earlier dragged closer to Van Graes’ desk and leaned back, mimicking him with her hands on her chair’s rests.

  “Isn’t it only natural to get kind of nervous, anxious even?” she said. “We’ve done other jobs for you in the past and this is the first time you’ve split us up …”

  “Operational efficiency, Ser Dervla,” Van Graes said, making a soothing gesture with one plump, wrinkled hand. “Having two teams tackling the preliminaries in parallel rather than in sequence accelerates matters in a way that I find quite pleasing. And I have agreed to send a bodyguard along with him …”

  “Said I don’t need a skaggin’ babysitter,” Pyke said. “But seems I don’t get a say.”

  Dervla’s gaze didn’t waver. “Your bodyguard had better be good.”

  “He’s an accredited, enhanced professional with a long list of successes.”

  “He better be brilliant—he better be a twenty-first dan ultra-ninja!”

  A small, unexpected smile softened their employer’s features. “Vaughan has been in my employ for nearly ten years, Ser Dervla—I trust him with my life and the lives of my family.”

  Pyke spread his hands. “See? This is just a find and retrieve mission, me and the boss’s man, there and back, easy …”

  “Don’t you dare say ‘easy in, easy out’!”

  Pyke paused, then smiled and went on. “I was about to say, ‘easy as pie,’ since everyone knows pie is … an easy thing …”

  “Or you could say ‘easy as falling off a log,’ Chief,” said Ancil who was sharing a long sofa with Kref’s substantial bulk.

  “Or ‘easy as shooting fish in a barrel,’” said Moleg. He was sharing the other identical sofa with Oleg the Kiskashin, both of them sitting across from Ancil and Kref. Pyke noticed how Oleg and Moleg both sat primly on the edge of the sofa, even though only Oleg possessed a short scaly tail which required a bit of room at the rear. Another sign of how Oleg’s mannerisms got entwined with Moleg’s back in the day, on another dangerous little caper like this one.

  “I think we’ve veered off the path a little,” said Van Graes. “The captain’s task is straightforward but not risk-free, hence the addition of my bodyguard. You, Ser Dervla, and the rest of your crew will be engaged in surveillance and preparation prior to the infiltration and retrieving the Angular Eye.”

  “You want us to break into a museum and engage in some no-nonsense burglarising,” Dervla said. “It’s an old-fashioned heist, in other words.”

  She glanced at Pyke and winked, which was always a sp
irits-lifter.

  “Earthy and to the point,” said Van Graes, arching a droll eyebrow. “All the necessary details are on the datatab I gave you, but as I’ve already indicated time is not on our side. Which is why, as soon as we’ve concluded our business, you will all be departing for your respective destinations. Is that agreeable?”

  When Dervla regarded him with a sidelong gaze and held it for a long, sharp moment, Pyke gave her his best devil-may-care rogue’s smile. In response she pointed her finger, almost as if she was aiming along it.

  “You … had better be there, Brannan Pyke, or I’m keeping the ship.” She jabbed the finger. “And I’ll turn it into a taxi.”

  “A low blow,” he said. “Guess I just better get there on time.”

  A nod. “So, wanna sign this thing?”

  “Well, we did come all this way.”

  Pyke was first to press his thumb to Van Graes’ screen, with Dervla and the others lined up behind him. They’d already seen the text of the contract before reaching the orbital, and it was another “freelancer expediters” agreement similar to ones they’d signed before.

  “Excellent,” said Van Graes. “Most satisfactory. Now that this stage is completed, Ser Dervla, it is time for yourself and your crew to take your leave and set course for Ong. My assistant will show you out.”

  Ancil and Moleg shook Pyke’s hand, Kref clapped him on the shoulder and urged him to “kill any ambushers, Captain, make ’em dead!,” while Oleg merely gave him a formal nod. Dervla said nothing, just kissed the tip of her forefinger then pointed it at him and fired off an invisible shot.