Death’s Head

by David Gunn

  My own sergeant glares at me.

  “But if that does happen,” I say, “you lead the Aux. Because you’re the best combat grunt in this room. Not that you have much competition. Apart from Franc, and she’s a basket case.”

  A grin lifts his face.

  “You take command and you take my rank.” I explain about the cameras, about how my trick with the lock is sleight of hand compared with the power Haze displays every time he throws up a mental wall.

  “We’re going to win this,” I tell him.

  “You really think so?”

  “Too fucking right,” I say. “Even if we all get killed doing it.”

  Neen laughs.

  CHAPTER 50

  EVERYONE LISTENS as I tell them about Neen taking my place if I go down, and though a scowl flicks across the face of a couple of militia officers no one objects. We’ve given these guys guns and jacked the door to what was their cell. And more to the point, we represent hope for them.

  A stinking, badly dressed, and forlorn hope, but hope all the same.

  “This is Haze,” I say, introducing him. “He’s got more shit in his head than you’ve got in your guts and he’s my intelligence officer. If you haven’t heard about people like him that’s because you’re a bunch of ignorant grunts.

  “Haze,” I say. “Find out where we need to be.”

  His face blanks for a second.

  “This side,” he says. “Three levels up, a hundred paces forward. The ship’s on automatic.” He hesitates, and then he’s back. “There are thirteen people between here and the control center.”

  “You heard the man,” I tell the Aux. “That’s where we’re going.”

  “How many on the ship altogether?” asks Neen.

  “Fifty-eight,” Haze says without vanishing. He obviously found this figure earlier. Glancing at me, he asks, “Do we do this noisy or silent?”

  “Both.”

  A knife takes the first guard in the back. It’s a clean kill as Neen rams his blade neatly between two ribs and shocks a man’s heart into silence. He kills two more in quick succession, both silently.

  All’s going well, much too well. It doesn’t last.

  We’re one level above where we were, and our next target is the set of steps when a three-braid suddenly appears.

  “Fuck,” says Haze, sounding really upset with himself.

  The braid shouts. He also hits a panic button, and Shil and Franc both fire, fingers hard on their triggers as they fry the braid back to a greasy shadow on the steps behind.

  Unfortunately the siren keeps yowling.

  Boots slapping, Neen reaches the steps first, firing from the hip. I want to be ahead of him, but things are unraveling too fast for me to get there in time. Five enemies down leaves eight out of thirteen. Except other doors are now opening and a Silver Fist is screaming orders somewhere nearby.

  A hand grips my arm.

  I punch Haze without thinking. I’m not angry with him, I don’t think he should have protected me better, I’m just ramped on violence and my reflexes are way ahead of my thoughts. It’s all I can do to pull the second blow.

  “My mistake,” I say.

  Climbing to his feet, Haze grabs me again. Tears mix with blood from his broken mouth, while his eyes flick in and out of focus as he tries to explain.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “Leave it.”

  “She uncloaked. I wasn’t ready.”

  Grabbing him in my turn, I flip him around and realize he’s afraid of me. That’s fine, I’m afraid of me. He’s also afraid of where he finds himself, of whatever the fuck is going on inside his head and whoever just uncloaked. But he’s holding it. I mean, he’s unraveling in front of me, but he’s holding the wall.

  “Who uncloaked?”

  “She’s here,” says Haze. “On this ship.”

  “Who is here?”

  “Duza, the eleven-braid.”

  I let Haze go and lean him against the bulkhead. There’s a firefight on the level above, but this needs saying. “Listen,” I tell him. “No one else could do what you’ve done.”

  Without even realizing it Haze wipes blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and something toughens in his voice. “Whatever it takes.”

  Yeah. He’s got that right. “Get me to the control room.”

  “If I do,” he says, “I’ll have to drop the shields on everybody else. Duza will know how many there are…and where they are.”

  “Just do it.”

  Pulse fire rages on the level above. Shil and the others have vanished; only a handful of militia remain at the foot of the steps. They’re armed but scared, and now that I’ve noticed them they’re more scared still.

  “Get up there and die,” I tell them.

  They do what they’re told.

  When I hit the top of the stairs, I realize that the only thing we have in our favor is the sheer bloody-mindedness of Shil and Neen, who are flat on the floor, ripping pulse shots into any Silver Fist stupid enough to stick his head around a corner in the corridor.

  Against us we’ve got numbers, training, and better armor.

  At least we’ve got these against us right up to the point I unholster my pistol and tell it to max out its combat potential.

  “You’re on.”

  “About fucking time.” Scanning the corridor, the newly uprated SW SIG-37 runs through a dozen loading options in a split second, although my money’s on it choosing cinder maker.

  I mean, why else would I be lugging three power packs?

  One pack lasts seventy-six hours under normal combat conditions, or so it says on the label. My bet is we can burn our way through all three before this is over.

  “Stay down.”

  Fire sweeps the corridor above Neen’s head.

  When I glance back, Rachel and Maria are kneeling behind me to fill in the gaps, only there aren’t any gaps because the SW SIG-37 spits a single line of plasma that melts metal and cuts ceramic as cleanly as a hot wire through butter.

  The SW SIG-37 is practically singing to itself as it burns a hole in an armored steel wall for the hell of it, then rips out a section of ceiling.

  “Move,” it tells me.

  But I’m doing that already.

  We hit the corner at a run, roll sideways, and burn the passage ahead, incinerating five or six guards. Luck is on our side, or maybe it’s simple insanity. Lenz above us are swiveling frantically and I take them out, then burn the luminex panels, throwing the area ahead into darkness.

  “Fuck,” Shil says.

  “Follow me.”

  The SW SIG-37 lights our way. It also gives the Silver Fist something to aim at, but none of them comes close to getting off a shot.

  “Five o’clock…”

  “Four o’clock, low…”

  “Twelve o’clock…”

  My reactions are so fast I’m tearing my own muscles, though I’ve long since ceased to care. I’m happy to sacrifice every single person this side of the line, including myself, to take out an eleven-braid.

  “Sniper on the roof,” someone shouts.

  There is no roof, but old phrases die hard and a shot zaps from an air duct in the corridor beyond.

  “Mine,” says the gun.

  A burst of plasma drops a cindered body to the deck below. Molten ceiling sets in a splatter pattern around it.

  “Maria’s down, sir.” The voice belongs to Shil.

  “How bad?”

  Her eyes flick to where Neen crouches beside his lover. He’s draped his jacket over Maria’s lower half, not a good sign. He has one of Maria’s hands folded into his own; in his other hand is a dagger.

  “Cover me,” I tell Shil.

  To Neen, I say, “You want me to do it?”

  He shakes his head. “My job.”

  As I turn back, Neen jabs the blade under her ribs and takes Maria through the heart. When he looks up there’s a blackness in his eyes.

  “Clean kill,” I
tell him, clapping him on the shoulder. “No one can ask for more.” The darkness stays where it is, so I go find Haze.

  “How far to go?”

  Haze glitches and comes back frowning. “Up a floor, along a corridor.” He hesitates. “They’re setting up a belt-fed. You want me to help Neen take it?” The boy is shaking, really shaking. Whatever Haze is doing inside his head is obviously killing him.

  It’s time we changed the rules.

  “No,” I say. “Leave that to the others. I want you to jack their hiSat system and fix me an off-planet broadcast.”

  “Who do you want to call, sir?”

  “Everyone…”

  He looks at me, puzzled.

  “I want to spam the fucking galaxy,” I tell him. “It’s got to reach the U/Free. It’s got to reach OctoV. It’s sure as hell got to reach the Uplifted.”

  Haze runs with the problem, his thoughts almost visible as he juggles his options and reaches a conclusion he doesn’t like. “It’s possible,” he says. “But I’ll have to uncloak you as well.”

  “Works for me.”

  “General Duza will be able to see you.”

  “That’s the idea.” I grip his shoulders, focusing his attention. Something has just occurred to me. “You know when the Enlightened flick dimensions. How do they do it?”

  He feeds the answer straight into my mind. Which fucks me over, because I don’t understand a single one of the concepts, until they begin to unravel and my mind scrabbles to keep up with what my unconscious now knows.

  I’ve got levels to my abilities I didn’t even realize existed, and I hate this voodoo shit, always have. Give me a gun and give me an enemy and I’ll take it to the wire and beyond every time. This Uplift stuff hurts my head, literally.

  “Is he okay?”

  It’s Neen, standing next to me. We seem to be in a different bit of corridor and his rate of fire has slowed to the point that a Silver Fist sticks his rifle around a corner, begins firing, and decides to follow his weapon to see what’s happening.

  Five different people burn him back to nothing.

  “What about that belt-fed?”

  Neen looks puzzled. “We killed it.” A while ago goes unstated.

  “Okay,” I tell Haze. “Do it in five.”

  Haze nods.

  To Neen I say, “The command is yours.”

  Neen wants to say something, only Haze is counting seconds down with his fingers and we hit zero before Neen can object. Angel or demon, I’m about to find out which…

  CHAPTER 51

  THIS IS SVEN TVESKOEG, lieutenant with the Death’s Head, Obsidian Cross second class. Half an hour ago a ship commanded by General Duza sank six sister vessels carrying Octovian prisoners on their way to Bhose. I am a soldier, an ex-legionnaire; we expect death. But this was not an act of war, it was not even judicial execution, it was the murder of five thousand disarmed men and women.”

  I double the figure on instinct.

  “A simple check of overhead hiSats will reveal the truth. Unless, of course, these have mysteriously malfunctioned…I want to add something else. With me are fifteen survivors, the last living witnesses to this atrocity. We’ve broken out and armed ourselves. And this bit of the message is for the crew of the Winter Wind. Arm yourselves, because we’re going to kill every last one of you. And the least you gutless bastards can do is die with a weapon in your hands. Something you didn’t allow the bulk of your prisoners…”

  Neen is staring at me wide-eyed; Shil has her hand over her mouth. Neither is concentrating on the corridor ahead.

  “Do your fucking jobs,” I tell the two of them.

  Their nods are the last thing I see before I vanish.

  White light and static, molecules dance like smoke, and colors collapse into each other until all I’ve got is darkness. This was never going to be easy. Haze is like an echo in my mind and I realize he’s shielding me again.

  You’re there, he says.

  “I’m here,” I say.

  The eleven-braid turns, her jaw dropping with shock. She’s tall, older than I expected, with flesh like weathered oak. This woman radiates power, and she’s fast.

  She’s gone before I realize it, a blow from the side knocking me into a wall. She should have used a knife, not her fist, and the wall is gone, somewhere behind me, because I’m outside for the split second it takes me to be somewhere else.

  Duza spins, glares at me.

  Pulling the trigger, I unleash a blast that rips a wall out of the command center, revealing night winds and rain. As I turn, my SW SIG-37 clears the room of anything that might be human. It’s not even intentional.

  I’m looking for Duza.

  “Behind you,” says my gun.

  A blast incinerates where I was standing. Only I’m not there, either, because I’m behind Duza nursing a burned hip.

  Too slow, I hear my gun say.

  Move faster.

  As Duza turns at the voice I grab the first of her eleven braids. Electricity sears flesh and glistening bone is revealed where the skin of my palm should be. Swapping hands makes me drop the SW SIG-37, which swears viciously as it hits the floor. But changing hands is instinctive and so is wrapping Duza’s braid around my fingers. In the end she simply reaches up and rips the steel plait from her own head.

  White light and static.

  She’s waiting for me when I step through a wall, her pistol already raised. Several things happen simultaneously.

  Duza says, “It finishes here.” But that’s the least of them.

  When her finger tightens on the trigger, I hurl my dagger as hard as possible, straight into her face, and she really is as good a shot as people say. I know this because she vaporizes the blade midthrow. Carbon, chromium, cobalt, manganese, molybdenum, silicon, and vanadium.

  I taste it happen.

  And I see it also, only I see it from behind her, which is where I’m now standing. And Duza is right: This is where the thing ends. Wrapping my fingers into a handful of braids, I yank back her head and feel the general flicker frantically as she tries to switch dimensions. Fear, pain, and my grip lock her into place for the few seconds it takes me to hack off her head with her own blade.

  And it’s true: Her flesh really is hard as old oak.

  “This thing you’ve got for knives,” says the gun when I pick it up again. “We need to talk about it sometime.”

  “SIR?” THE SHOUT comes from Neen.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s me.”

  “You can stop firing, sir,” he says. “We’ve done it.”

  The Aux take one look at the severed head hanging from my hand and glance at one another. “You might want to lose that, sir,” says Neen.

  I’m expecting a battle report, numbers lost and injured, what the Aux are doing to lock down any remaining guards or crew, but it’s obvious Neen’s mind is on other things. As are all their minds.

  “Why?” I demand.

  “Because,” says Haze, “we’re about to have visitors.”

  Shil begins to straighten my uniform, then takes a look at my face and decides to leave it as it is. “Take the gun,” she suggests. “Although I’d keep it pointed at the floor.”

  By now I know who is out there.

  “How do I look?”

  “Like shit.”

  “That’s Like shit, sir…”

  She snaps a half-mocking salute, then lets her gaze flick to my burned hip. “You want me to battle-dress that first?”

  “No,” I say. “It’ll keep.”

  We go out together. Not just me and the Aux, but the whole crowd of us, right down to the girls originally chosen to keep the crew amused on their journey to Bhose. We carry a motley collection of daggers, pulse rifles, and pistols, although everyone is careful to keep their blades sheathed and their fingers well away from any firing buttons or triggers.

  THE ONE THING you can say for the United Free is that their stick is so unbelievably big, they can afford to speak very soft
ly indeed. You don’t need to raise your voice when you can swat whole planets as easily as children can brush away a fly.

  Lights illuminate the decks of the Winter Wind, although none of us can pinpoint their origin. Some form of force shield is holding back the storm so that rain trickles down invisible walls in the distance. Above the slow waves hovers a vast black oval that shifts slightly until it hangs unsupported next to our ruined deck.

  “Attention,” shouts Neen.

  And as we watch, a sliver of the oval disappears. It doesn’t open or slide back or nictitate, it simply vanishes, and a young woman steps onto our deck. She’s wearing a simple jacket, ordinary black trousers, and light-colored shoes; somehow the effect is far more elegant than she has the right to expect.

  I recognize her immediately.

  “Paper Osamu,” she says, introducing herself.

  We all know that citizens in the Free can replace their bodies and hold back the years, so there’s a chance Ms. Osamu is really older than we are, perhaps by centuries. But she looks about Neen’s age, which I find disconcerting in someone who goes on to announce herself as newly promoted U/Free ambassador to this section of the outer spiral.

  “Which one of you is Sven Tveskoeg?”

  I step forward, aware that my injured hip makes me limp.

  Readouts in my head tell me we’ll be on lenz from the moment the ship arrives until the moment it leaves. So I try to keep my shoulders straight and my chin up, but tiredness makes me stumble and when Paper Osamu shakes my hand it’s impossible for me not to wince.

  She turns my ruined hand in hers so the burned flesh is visible against the black leather of her glove. “You’re injured.”

  “There’s been a battle.”

  Her mouth twists, which could be the beginnings of a smile. “We heard,” she says. “We also piggybacked the local spy sats and you’re right, all appear to have suffered the same simultaneous malfunction. However…” She pauses, like someone used to public speaking, and that’s when I know she’s older than she looks.

  “We have identified wreckage, also bodies. A U/Free team is collecting evidence as I speak and if what you say is true…” She hesitates, for real this time. “And I tend to believe it is, then I will be filing a galactic crime report. Third-degree genocide. You may be called to give evidence.”