While I tried to figure out whether Denisoff was serious or drunk, he rose to his feet and offered me his hand. I let him pull me up, which made him grunt with effort – I’m a much bigger guy than him. When I looked away uncomfortably I noticed Shahdi Mowad watching everything.
The girl had handled herself effectively in the woods today, but there was still an innocence about her that seemed to energize a protective streak in me. My need to revenge myself on Volk snapped back into sharp focus. The gangster had pissed off a lot of people, tried to kill me, and destroyed my farm, but it was the hurt that he’d done to young Mowad that motivated me to do like the corporate mission statement and take revenge.
Chikune wanted me to break in and hack secure data, but why should I need to? We were all on the same side here. We were Revenge Squad.
Denisoff swayed like a sapling in a gale. I grabbed his shoulders, steadying him. “Hey, boss. I’ve been hearing about Volk all day long. I want to ask you something about him.”
The playfulness Denisoff had been wearing like an ill-fitting cloak instantly dropped away. “What do you wish to know?” he asked guardedly.
“For a start, who is he? What is he? How do we kill him? And when?”
Denisoff sobered and removed my hands from his shoulders. “We shall deal with Volk,” he said. “If you have a part to play then it will be explained to you at the appropriate juncture. Until then I shall tell you nothing about him. Do not ask again.”
“But he was behind the damage to my farm. You told me I could take my revenge on him. Were you lying to me, Viktor?”
“No,” he replied, his voice ice cold. “I said I might let you take him down. And even that is unlikely to involve killing him directly. Your involvement or otherwise in this matter depends on many factors, not least whether you are selected as an agent.”
“Even if I’m an associate, I still know how to kill people.”
“Knowing how to do something and carrying it through are two different things. I deduct you fifty points for freezing in the woods today, and another hundred for pressing me when I told you to shut the frakk up. And another ten for using my first name without my permission. No more unauthorized vendettas, McCall. I mean it! Do not ask about Volk.”
As I watched Denisoff move away to be swallowed up by the revelry, I knew that the drunken assistant squad leader had told me plenty. There was something about this ganglord they were hiding.
I grinned. Philby was a headhunting murderer who flinched at Docking Tube’s disapproval of taking revenge against Volk. And if Philby hated Volk so much, why hadn’t he ordered a hit squad to take him out? It sure didn’t look as if Revenge Squad was quite as simple an outfit as it liked to make out, and that made all the difference to me. It was as if the world had shifted half a pace to the left and now I was seeing it from a new and far more interesting perspective.
Most important of all, Denisoff had ordered me to stop asking questions about Volk. There is no power in the universe better able to motivate NJ McCall than to tell him not to do something. I had a mission now, and I was neither seeking revenge on Mowad’s behalf, nor was I dancing to Chikune’s tune.
I was doing this for me.
I was gonna find out the secret behind Volk. And from there I would work out the secret behind Revenge Squad.
The alcoholic mists cleared a little and I frowned. Had Denisoff said something about points?
— CHAPTER 34 —
I left the Great Hall with the underground party still in full swing, deciding that a little stroll was in order, a night time excursion that just might place me in the vicinity of a smartscreen from which I could dig up intel on Volk.
No personal vendettas!
The more I replayed Denisoff’s warning, the more I imagined I had seen a challenge in those gray eyes. I admit it. I’m not a difficult person to manipulate. Did he want me to dig around for info on Volk? And, now I thought about it, Denisoff had actually said ‘no more personal vendettas’. What had that been about? Were Mowad, Chikune and maybe others here at Camp Prelude because Philby had a personal grudge against Volk?
I decided I didn’t care. Speculation was a luxury for people whose heads weren’t starting to spin.
Ruminating over heads behaving strangely made me think of Silky. Should I bring her into my confidence? I must have agonized over that for – oh, a second at least. As far as I was concerned, she was another mystery. Besides, she had disappeared after she’d felled me, probably holed up somewhere quiet to work up her anger at me into a frenzy.
All that disappoint me and I’ll kill you drent – I wasn’t even the same species as her! Surely I couldn’t spark such a profound change in her as a shift to a different gender merely because I’d forgotten our anniversary, or hadn’t complimented her on her head fronds recently? I shrugged. Who could tell? All I knew about aliens was that they had caused boundless misery in my life. Why would they stop now?
I halted, and discovered that while my brain had drifted through the infinite mind-space of things I didn’t understand, my faithful feet had carried me outside to the shadow of Blockhouse ‘A’.
The more I thought about Silky, the more I realized I had to take her threat seriously. It was a big galaxy out there, and in the tiny sliver I’d encountered, gender fluidity wasn’t that uncommon. Frobeki units were famous for this. The long periods of cryo-suspension aboard troopships wreaked havoc on the biological rhythms, meaning the units were disrupted for weeks after disembarking while their soldiers’ bodies worked out what gender they now were.
I decided to compromise over Silky. If she ever started to look threatening, I’d take her seriously – and kill her. Not the most romantic post-nuptial plan, but I still couldn’t bring myself to believe she would carry out her threat.
With my concerns set in order, I snapped my intoxicated mind back onto the task at hand.
— CHAPTER 35 —
Every base, starship, and town I had ever been posted to had their secrets, which would slowly reveal themselves to the most inquisitive soldiers. I was still new here, a long way off learning the hidden places of Camp Prelude. All I knew about the target of my surveillance was what I’d seen previously with my eyes, mostly from the inside although I had also received training within.
What went by the official name of the Office and Training Block, consisted of a low sprawl of prefab huts connected by the kind of docking tubes used in space. The whole flimsy edifice butted up against the parade ground like an oversized latrine block.
Unlike the armored blockhouses that should be proof against small arms fire, the office block was so flimsy I doubted it was proof against a modest gust of wind.
There was no sense in leaving hard cover to potential invaders, but no point also in leaving vital info in such an indefensible location. Chikune liked to hint that the secrets of the universe could be unearthed here, but I’m sure anything juicy would be secured inside the blockhouses.
Sanaa had been quiet during the party but now picked up on my doubts. You have to start somewhere, she reasoned.
He hasn’t actually started anything, Bahati pointed out.
I’m trying to think here, I snapped. Give me space.
My ghosts left me with a few departing jeers. Bahati was right. I hadn’t actually done anything other than stretch my legs. If I broke into that office block, I would be crossing more than a physical threshold.
All of a sudden, this night-time escapade had the feel of the kind of endeavor whose logic required the consumption of alcohol to be convincing. The sensible course would be for me to call off the operation, to give this more sober reflection before maybe trying again. On the other hand, I had been drinking because there was a party. And that party meant almost everyone in Revenge Squad was away from here, getting shwiggity-shwatfaced beneath Blockhouse ‘A’.
But this was not a game. If I was caught breaking in, I didn’t think Denisoff would be understanding. He would let Philby mount my head next to
Michelle’s.
Actually, I doubted Philby would bother cluttering his wall. He’d simply throw my corpse into the bio-recycling chute. Silky’s head was a far more exquisite and rare specimen. He might mount hers in pride of place next to Michelle’s. The wall of traitors.
I shook these fears away. Revenge Squad wanted Silky. They’d made that clear. So long as I didn’t tell her anything, she wouldn’t be implicated and that would keep her safe. Probably.
Having convinced myself that it was only my safety I was gambling with, my worries dissolved. My curiosity had been on sabbatical to places unknown for many years. Now it was back with a vengeance, joining forces with my alcohol-logic to easily face down my sense of self-preservation until it rolled over and begged for mercy.
I knew there were four entrances to this sprawl of prefabs, each covered by a pair of security cameras.
That’s all the security I could see, anyway. That and the guard patrols who would be doing the rounds at some point. I had enough experience deploying security perimeters to know that the most effective security measures are the ones you didn’t see first.
Were there hidden measures I couldn’t see, or was the internal security as rudimentary as it looked? Only one way to find out.
Are you gonna do this or not? growled Bahati. I’m freezing my tits off out here.
I laughed. If there are any body parts to freeze off, they’re mine. You’re dead, my sweet. But point taken.
I casually walked around the back of the office block, keeping a minimum fifty-meter distance from the buildings. I felt the damp grass of the field behind beginning to soak through the bottom of my pants.
After a last look around for any trouble, I rushed at the nearest cabin.
If I ran full tilt at its wall, I would probably go straight through. That direct approach would have saved a lot of bother, but I was trying for ninja subtlety tonight. Just before I hit the wall, I jumped up, got a toehold on a window recess, and pushed up into the moons-lit night like an un-ballistic missile. I dropped and rolled onto the flat roof, spreading my weight so I didn’t go through.
It felt like a close-run thing. The roof wobbled as if it were a membrane of stretched cardboard. Possibly it was. Anyone inside would have heard me tumble across the roof, but I heard no shouts and no bullets were shot at me.
I began to breathe.
Then I sucked in my breath, stifling a scream. Breathing was much too painful. The medic who had patched me up that afternoon had ordered me to respect the seriousness of my injuries. My protesting body was making it quite clear that falling onto a flat roof was beyond disrespectful. The bolts of agony it sent in revenge shot through my arms and legs, growing in intensity and making progress unthinkable.
I lay there on the roof for a full four minutes of groaning, of promising my body that one day soon I’d start looking after it.
But not tonight.
Hurt but functioning I eventually got up and stepped or jumped from one block to another as quietly as I could, until I was over where my memory told me Denisoff’s office should be.
I tried opening the nearest skylight. Naturally, it was locked from the inside. I opened my pouch and grabbed the plasma cutter I had liberated from stores on my second day. I cut cleanly around the skylight, and lifted it out. I stuck my head down the hole.
I was midway along a corridor lined with doors with simple keypad locks. Each end of my corridor was a T-junction showing glimpses of similar corridors running perpendicular to this one.
Plenty of places to look for dirt.
Now came the part I dreaded. If I dropped headfirst, as I’d been taught, my arms would protest at this further punishment. If I dropped feet first, my legs and knees would.
There was nothing for it but to suck up a little more pain. I took a deep breath and… froze!
I could hear someone walking down the adjoining corridor, striding purposefully but without undue haste.
It was too late to shuffle back out of sight, so I did all I could think of. I made like I was dead.
A single figure came into view. Their black cloak billowed in a way deliberately designed to confuse their outline. Too tall to be a ship rat, I reckoned, and probably humanoid, but that was about as much as I could tell.
The person almost slowed to a halt, as if their gut told them something was wrong, and they were straining every sense to detect this potential threat.
If they just turned their head to the right, then the sight of an Assault Marine’s head thrust through the ceiling would give them the surprise of their life.
I opened my mouth and took the quietest and shallowest breaths I could. They still sounded like those weird stealth guns that shot at me earlier in the day. My heart pounded like the crump of artillery.
But the mystery figure must have been deaf because it picked up pace and carried on. I sensed a haste in their footsteps, which made me suspect they had no more business being here than I did.
Abort! screamed the Sarge.
Absa-frakking-lutely, Sergeant, I replied.
I waited a few seconds until the footsteps had receded enough for my liking, and then wriggled myself back onto the roof. Every instinct told me to flee, but the Sarge helped to calm me down while I did a proper job resealing the skylight.
Then I fled.
Ninja be damned. I ran across the roofs back to my point of entry, jumped down to the grass below, and limped away from my clumsy landing, making for the extra thick shadows thrown by two moons being in near-alignment.
It was only when I’d retreated far into the darkness and begun circling back around the office block on the way to my quarters in Blockhouse ‘B’ that my sense of curiosity began to reassert itself.
First question. Who the frakk had I just seen?
That damned cloak made it difficult, but I thought it could have been a Wolf. Possibly Xeene, but César was a larger and better fit. Could be Chikune, of course, but why press me to do his dirty work and then do it himself anyway?
I sighted the mysterious figure, up ahead, and slowed to keep a good distance while I followed them.
They were making for Blockhouse ‘B’, same as me.
Everywhere I looked: secrets. Who’d have thought working for a paramilitary insurance company would be so interesting?
Outside the blockhouse I clung to the shadows for a few minutes, rehearsing my innocent face should anyone come nearby. When no one did, I followed the mysterious figure inside the blockhouse, this Ninja Skulk.
I had no idea who they were.
But I was going to find out.
— CHAPTER 36 —
I walked into the blockhouse as if I had nothing to hide, and made for the main ramp at the rear up to my dorm on Level 2.
I tried to keep my ears alert for any sounds that might give a clue to the Skulk’s identity. Were they going up to the accommodation level? It was even possible they were another recruit.
I stopped and clenched my fists. If this person had revealed the location of the training exercise to Volk’s killers, then I held them responsible for Magenta’s death.
A century ago I might have been able to track them by my hearing, but I was half deaf these days.
My thirst for revenge dried. There was nothing more I could do today. This skulking around was a young person’s business. Tell me who the bad guy is and I’ll wade in there, fists flying. I wasn’t sure I was fit for sneaking around.
Then I saw something up ahead in one of the embrasures. I might not be able to hear much, but after the eyes I was born with were pulped, my replacements have gotten me out of – and into – several tight spots.
The ramp was broad enough to deploy a large body of people rapidly, but in case the wrong kind of people were doing that deploying, armored embrasures jutted out into the ramp and I’d seen through a firing port. Someone was inside.
I can’t help myself sometimes. I carried on walking past the embrasure as if nothing had happened, but then I turned
around and poked my head against a firing port on the far side.
I sent a cheery ‘hello’ into the darkness inside.
I didn’t feel cheery. Not if this was the Skulk. I backed away, not wanting a knife through my eye. But to my surprise, I had seen two figures inside.
I tensed as the embrasure’s blast door opened. Out stepped our two Wolves.
César looked at me with the terror of a cadet caught red-handed in a serious offense by their instructor.
Xeene was not so much terrified as terrifying.
“Enjoy snooping around?” she snarled.
“Just stretching my legs,” I replied. “Same as you.” I tried to keep a cheeky veneer to my words, but the truth was that this angry Wolf was a potential foe I took very seriously indeed.
Xeene took a step toward me and lowered her center of mass into a ready combat stance. I took a half step back.
“I’ve got no problem with you, McCall. Walk away and wipe what you’ve heard from your mind.”
“It’s all right,” said César, “his hearing is shot to pieces. His wife told me.”
“And you believed her?” Xeene didn’t take her eyes off me. “How did he know we were here otherwise, unless he can see in the dark? Can you see in the dark, McCall?”
“Yes.”
She considered. “I suppose it’s possible. We’re all freaks one way or another here. You’re going to have to prove that ability to me, but not here and now. I’ll tell you what I do know, McCall. You’re an Assault Marine. That means you’ve got a Neanderthal-spliced skull, muscles like a Jotun, and a body that can take so much punishment and still keep coming that I was taught the only surefire way to stop brutes like you is to cut your head off.”
“Ignore her,” I told César. “She’s only flattering me so much because she’s desperate to get me in her rack.”
It was my fists making me talk such drent. I was burning with frustration and hitting people can be such a tonic.
After War Page 22
