Second Strike (Revenge Squad Book 2)

by Tim C. Taylor

  “No, we’re good,” I said cheerfully. “Watch this.” I flicked the peak of Silverberg’s hat, which sailed up into the air, where a breeze propelled it over the decking rail and down out of sight to the dockside below.

  “You care about the uniform and what it represents,” I explained to Silverberg, whose normally pale face was acquiring plum shades. “Do I need to perform a bodily function in your hat to make the point?”

  “Go away,” she shouted in a voice so taut that when it snapped it was likely to sever the heads of anyone nearby.

  I looked meaningfully at Silky. “Some help here?”

  “What?” she said. I could sense the moment when understanding dawned. “Oh, I see.”

  Silky cleared her throat… and then punched Silverberg very hard in the face.

  — CHAPTER 30 —

  Silverberg arrested us immediately on one charge of being a public chodding nuisance and another of being criminally annoying. Cuffed and outwardly repentant, we preceded her along the sidewalk.

  I began to worry I’d pushed Silverberg too far when she kept telling us that ‘you’re going straight back to jail and this time I’m not busting you out’. But instead of the station house, she took us to Tantor Dock where, in the shadow of an unladen heavy truck, she told us to halt. “Okay, you jokers,” she said. “You got my attention. What the hell do you want?”

  “We need to talk,” I told her. “In private.”

  “Also,” added Silky, “I enjoyed striking you.” She batted her eyelids at me – where was she learning these gestures? “NJ, can I do it again?”

  “Not now, my sweet.”

  “I could shoot you for insurrection,” said Silverberg, but she uncuffed us anyway.

  “Yeah, yeah. You could,” I said, rubbing at my chafed wrists, “but we all know you won’t. We have evidence. It’s important we give it to someone trustworthy.”

  “So you said back at the station house, but you swooned before telling me what it was.”

  “I didn’t swoon, I… Oh, never mind. My plan didn’t work. I’m a witness to something vital, but my evidence won’t withstand a pounding in court.”

  “Does it concern police corruption?” she whispered.

  I nodded.

  Silverberg froze, the only movement a twitch building in her eye. Her fierce crust crumbled away… and then reformed. “One thing first,” she said, and then stood nose to nose in front of Silky. I’d never realized they were almost the exact same height and build. “Touch me again, xeno, and I will floor you and you will not get up again.”

  “Bring it on, human.”

  I threw my hands up in disbelief. The strangest thing was why Silverberg bothered with this face off. She was brave, resourceful, and could put an arm lock on a drunken Marine, but she was not kick-ass dangerous.

  Silky was.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake,” I said. “You’re not first-year cadets. Lieutenant Silverberg, you are a black-hearted soul who wields terror and blackmail against decent people. We fought a war to free the future from people like you.” I was just venting, really, but Silverberg flinched, my accusation hitting her like a body blow. “We stick with you because beneath your disgusting exterior, I believe you’re a decent woman.”

  I turned to my wife. “And as for you, Sylk-Peddembal, you should know better than to hit people we need to be nice to.”

  Silky lowered her head a few nanometers. “I’m sorry, NJ.”

  “I forgive you.”

  Silverberg stepped away from Silky. “You’re an idiot, McCall. The only reason we ever collaborated is because I’ve got a hold over you.”

  “Used to have a hold over us,” I told her.

  That brought a look of surprise from both of them. “Yeah, really,” I said. “I think your blackmail’s expired, officer. Let’s talk about that too. In private.”

  “There’s nowhere safe to talk,” she said miserably. “Officers can’t legally conduct covert surveillance without a warrant, but the rule of law is running a little thin right now. I’m certain my place is being watched. Probably yours is too.”

  I looked at Silky with a question in my mind. She smiled back and extended a hand to Silverberg, who shook it warily.

  “It’s an honor, Lieutenant,” she said, and the weird thing is I could feel that she meant it. Aliens!

  “What is your alien freak doing, McCall? Do I get to hit her now?”

  “Negative. When she’s excited, she skips the facts, and goes straight to the emotional heart of whatever she needs to say. What she means is that we are honored for you to be the first guest at our new apartment. Our place has a room decked out in anti-surveillance gear.”

  Silverberg shook her head wearily, as if being forced to converse with abject morons. Probably from her point of view, she was. “This had better be good, McCall.”

  “Oh, it is,” I replied. “You have no idea.”

  — CHAPTER 31 —

  Lieutenant Rachel Silverberg – the former operational commander of Port Zahir Police Department – abruptly halted her explanation and hung her head in her hands. “Explain again why we’re talking here,” she said. “Or better still, tell me it’s all a big fat joke and I’ll gladly shoot myself now.”

  I almost felt sorry for her.

  The disgraced former captain was recounting her story while sitting on top of our toilet in the apartment I shared with Silky. I was enjoying the spectacle from the empty bath, my hands behind my head resting against the jacket that I’d jammed against the taps.

  Silky stopped pacing the stone-tiled floor and allowed the irony in Silverberg’s words to sail over her lumpy head. “The reason we debrief you here,” she tried to explain, “is because our bathroom is a bombproof shelter shielded against surveillance.”

  “So you told me. Hence the brutalist architecture and the arsenal you keep beneath the wash basin. What I meant was why am I bothering to tell you my woes?”

  “Because it’s better entertainment than the crap they put on the entertainment feed,” I told her.

  “Ndeki!” warned Silky and Sanaa simultaneously, which was particularly unnerving because Bahati was egging me on to take the fight to the policewoman and push her suffering to the max.

  “Fine,” I said out loud to Bahati’s dismay. “Sorry, my love. My heart’s right with you, but Sanaa sees the bigger picture here, and even Silky does too.”

  Silverberg’s interest perked up and she looked at Silky. “Is he faking that,” she asked, “or is he really talking to dead people?”

  “Oh, believe it,” the alien replied. “When they reappear, it’s often a sign that he’s unsure of himself, but sometimes they just come out for company. I share him with two late wives and his old squad leader, amongst others. It was strange at first, and then slightly threatening, but I’m now forever grateful that I don’t have to spend all my time watching over him. He is less of a burden that way.”

  Silverberg laughed. “You two freaks are perfect for each other.”

  “We are,” I countered from the bath tub. “And since you’re being smeared out of the department, we are also the two freaks who want to put you back into favor so that you have the power to do something with the evidence we have against the mayor and your former colleagues – some of whom, as far as we know, are still lying undiscovered in a secret room you say isn’t on the floor plan. We need you. You need us.”

  “That’s not how this works,” she replied angrily, getting up off the toilet seat and shuffling a few paces sideways to the airing closet. “Freaks or not, you’re still my bitches. If I die or–” she shrugged – “if I finally tire of you, then I’ll make sure everyone in Port Zahir knows that Silky is a deserter, and we all know how forgiving the Human Legion is about its deserters and those who aid them.”

  “Let’s see now,” I said. “The higher ups at Revenge Squad already know Silky’s status. Most notably, that means Holland Philby, the branch director for Tata-West who hates me probab
ly more than anyone else on this planet, and only let us flee to Port Zahir because his exceptionally scary boss put him in time out. Then there’s you, Lieutenant Silverberg. And let us not forget Mrs. Gregory, the gang boss who totes handbags worth more than your annual departmental budget, and hosts a psychotic and indeed psychic parasite. If she doesn’t know Silky’s secret, she definitely knows she’s running from something. The only reason Gregory hasn’t cashed in on that is because she’s still hoping to recruit my wife.”

  “And there’s the Pavnix who now leads the revenge agency called Hurt U Back,” said Silky. “The one NJ calls Leaky Veck and who saw inside my head last year.”

  I nodded, and then smiled annoyingly at the police officer. “It’s not the best kept secret, is it? Remind me why we’re your bitches.”

  Silverberg shrugged. “You two walk on a knife edge, but you balance there nonetheless – for now, at least – because everyone chooses to let you live. Let me change the stakes to convince you of the urgency. If I die or lose my job–” she slapped a hand down on the toilet seat cover. The sound cracked like a pistol shot, but luckily the seat didn’t.

  “What you need is a pardon,” she said tilting her head and smiling like an angel. “In theory, there’s nothing for which the governor couldn’t grant a pardon.”

  “Can she really do that?” asked Silky with such hope that I planted my face in my hand.

  “Of course,” answered the police woman sweetly.

  Silky lifted her hands to the low ceiling as if offering a prayer of thanks for her salvation. “Thank you, Lieutenant, for solving our problem. You can’t imagine what a weight off my heart this is. Send for the governor immediately.”

  “She’s a politician,” Silverberg sneered, “which means she’s only nice to anyone if she calculates it will win her votes. Why would she grant pardons to barely house-trained, mercenary alien-faggots with severe mental health issues? You’re political contact poison. She won’t want to be seen in the same city block as you unless it’s to parade you…”

  I watched with pride as Silverberg’s words failed and the smile slid off her face. For months now, I’d been working hard with Silky to teach her human irony, and by the Fates, she’d crushed it.

  Suddenly, my lips parted and I froze, my eyes glazed into a thousand-yard stare. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more dramatic, but that’s the closest I come to squealing in delight and rolling around on the floor, kicking my legs in the air.

  Silky heard my inner squeal, of course. I imagine her head tentacles were buzzing with my shock but she allowed herself only a moment of surprise before interrogating Silverberg as if nothing had happened. “Since in saving ourselves, we’re also trying to rescue your overly fleshed, human butt, you should stop wasting everyone’s time with your idiotic talk of pardons. Let us recap. Someone is trying to push you out of the department. We don’t wish that to happen because we need an insider to fight the corruption and murder going on under your nose. They don’t want the formal investigation that comes with bringing a charge against you, or with murdering you, so they are discrediting you by association with your dead lover, Connor, who was a criminal. It is not illegal for a police officer to select a criminal for a mate, but your Pavnix commanding officer considers your behavior to be highly improper.”

  “And Captain K’Zoh-Zhan is right to do so,” Silverberg snapped. “I shouldn’t have hooked up with Connor. Shouldn’t have done a lot of the things I’ve done. This is hopeless, McCall. Your pet alien here doesn’t know her humans from her humpback whales. Connor wasn’t my lover anymore. I’d ended it, and that’s what killed him.”

  The soundproofing in the armored bathroom brought a starkness to the silence that followed.

  I slithered out the bath and sat on its edge. “Rachel,” I said softly, “please tell us about Connor.”

  “Why? So you can laugh?”

  I held my hands up in surrender. “I apologize. I think you…”

  I paused, exploring the weed-choked parts of my mind where I might find the words I needed. While Silky and I had been trying to explore the ways we could ally with honest cops to bring down the mayor, Silverberg had fed us a stream of evasive half-statements about this dead man, Connor – enough for me to know he wasn’t important to our plight. Not directly. But Silverberg had clearly taken the kind of wounds on the inside that could only heal if she talked out her burden. It was not our problem… we didn’t have time to waste on this… I’d only make things worse… but I couldn’t sit back and watch her suffer without doing anything.

  Sorry, Bahati. Silverberg needs us now, and we weren’t exactly helping.

  “Connor was a minor criminal with nuisance offences,” said Silverberg, watching me like an imp on sensor duty. “Possession of narcotics. Public drunkenness. Brawling.”

  “Had he been in the war?” Silky asked.

  Silverberg suddenly couldn’t look me in the eye. “Tactical Marine. Spent nearly all his life in space. He used to go to one of the Cheapside bars, get drunk, challenge everyone he met to fight. If no one gave him what he wanted he’d drink himself into the gutter.”

  “If I hadn’t caught myself in time,” I said, “with the aid of my friends, then that would have been me too.”

  Silverberg looked at me with a painful but direct gaze. Had I done something wrong? The mere sight of me seemed to be hurting her.

  I plowed on regardless. “I couldn’t sit still as a farmer. Didn’t work for me. Nor did pushing buttons in an office. It’s not some kind of bravado thing, I was made to fight.”

  “Connor couldn’t help himself,” Silverberg shivered. “He was as gentle as a lamb – so loving and kindhearted – but then… he’d switch. In the middle of a sentence, he’d twitch, and whatever his eyes were seeing, it wasn’t me. Then Connor was gone and a combat cyborg was inhabiting his flesh. I’ve seen some scary shit, McCall, but nothing’s freaked me out as much as seeing him transform in front of me.”

  “I understand,” I said. “We spent most of our lives high on combat drugs telling us the only purpose to life is to rip it away from anyone we didn’t like the look of. The AIs we grew up and lived with didn’t just feed tactical data to BattleNet, they were a part of us, the sensible part that kept us from going berserker crazy. We were never meant to retire, Rachel. Not my generation. Our AIs were supposed to be with us until the day we died. When they took out our AIs and told us we were now civilians, they were tearing us in two. Why do you think I joined Revenge Squad?”

  “Because it’s the best way to keep her safe,” she replied, flicking her head in my wife’s direction.

  “Yes…” I admitted. “Well, yes that too. But I would have joined anyway in the end, or something like Revenge Squad. It’s the outlet I need. Your Connor didn’t have that pressure release valve.”

  Silverberg looked as if I’d slapped her in the face.

  Rachel was trying to be Connor’s outlet, Sanaa explained.

  My world narrowed and chilled while I processed Sanaa’s update. Drent!

  Silverberg gave a bitter laugh at my reaction. “I guess I’m just as clueless as you, McCall. We understand people when they’re being enemy combatants, criminals, and comrades – but try relating to anyone as just a person and we have no idea.”

  “But you tried,” said Silky. “Failure isn’t shameful. Choosing not to try in the first place is what makes a person a coward. Remember why you tried. Maybe that will help you to heal.”

  “I met him nine months ago at work,” Silverberg said, adding an ironic laugh. “I arrested him for drunken affray, and fell in love.” She shook her head. “Jeez, there is so much wrong in that. Within hours of releasing him from jail, I’d practically re-imprisoned him in my bed. I knew it could get me fired but I was too loved up to care. You see, usually when you lock someone up for that kind of offense, they spit abuse. Connor wasn’t usual. He was desperate to apologize, to make amends. Then, once he was inside his cell, he said something I’d n
ever heard before. He thanked me for taking him off the street where he could be a danger to others, and he asked for my help. The stupid man melted my heart. I’m sorry, Connor. I’m so sorry.”

  I felt a flash of indecision through Silky’s kesah-kihisia and then she advanced on Silverberg. She was about to give the human woman an empathetic embrace – or whatever the proper term for a tentacle hug is – but Silverberg scowled and Silky shrank back.

  “I used to think I had courage. I don’t suppose you realize this, McCall, but you Marines tower over Earthers like me. You swagger around my city, hugely muscled giants taught to kill from birth. I’m constantly intimidated by you but I can’t let any of that show because I still have to project authority. I still have to arrest Marines.”

  Novel thoughts flooded my brain. I knew I hadn’t always given Silverberg much respect because without a gun in her hand, she was so small and weak that the idea of her taking on a Marine in a fight was ludicrous. Perhaps there were other forms of strength. “You are brave,” I insisted.

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t brave enough to stick with Connor. He was a good man, and he loved me truly, but he needed help. I tried to be the lifeline he desperately needed. I tried to heal him with my love, but in the end I was too scared of him. I threw him out. Next time I saw him was on the slab at the station morgue.”

  “Listen to me,” I said angrily. “You are not responsible for his death. You tried when most people don’t.”

  “No? I cut his lifeline. I knew he needed me but I cast him away and he had nothing left. Within days he’d picked a fight he knew he couldn’t win with some hoods hired by the gangster I’d been working to bring in. Nasty piece of work called Lee. He took out four. The dumb idiot must have thought he was helping me, but someone in the department fixed up the evidence to make it look as if Connor had been part of Lee’s gang. K’Zoh-Zhan doesn’t think I was dating an ex-soldier with a drink problem, sie thinks I was sleeping with a gangster. No wonder sie despises me so much.”