“You don’t,” Caccamo replied. “You leave that veck well alone.”
“Don’t tell me to leave him alone,” I said, trying to keep from shouting. “You know why I can’t.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Caccamo told me. “McCall, Sylk-Peddembal, you’re with me. The rest of you, sort out the mess Sel-en-Sek has gotten himself into. And if you find a way to assist Lieutenant Silverberg then do so because Sylk-Peddembal may be correct. When the twists and turns stop spinning and we can finally see the entirety of the mess we’re in, we may well find out that we need her far more than she needs us. Listen up, people. Revenge Squad is officially despised and put on notice, but we’re still free citizens for the moment. Try not to blow up anything important.”
“What are we going to do, sir?” asked Silky.
“Us, Section Leader? Why, we’re going to put the mayor away for good.”
“Excellent,” she said. “Do I get to kill him?”
“No, my dear. You’re going to do worse than that. You’re going to discredit him utterly, and you two are going to do it together.”
— CHAPTER 35 —
The moment the old-fashioned metal door knob began to turn, Silky and I stopped debating whether Caccamo’s scheme would work and snapped to attention.
A single figure entered the plush office. She was a mixed-race human woman, surprisingly young – but then a lot of people seemed young these days.
It was her. The contact Caccamo had provided. The ally who would bring the mayor to justice.
At least, I assumed she was. I realized, sheepishly, that I hadn’t thought to study her image beforehand. But who else could this be? We were inside the Palace of Government, after all. Inside the governor’s personal study!
“Thank you,” I told her. “We appreciate you helping us, your governor-ness-ship. Sorry, never had a governor in my chain of command before.”
“Ma’am will do.”
I nodded sharply, and allowed Silky to take charge of the respectful pleasantries.
The governor wreathed herself in an aura of confidence, and after the lethal chaos of the last few days she was just the salve I needed. Her confidence was attractive too, enough to make me appreciate her exotic look, courtesy of her mixed Marine and Spacer heritage. She had the long, delicate fingers and neck of a Spacer, but with enough meat and heft to her that I wouldn’t worry about breaking her if we started testing the load strength of that swanky desk behind me, the one emblazoned with the official crest of Hy-Nguay. In fact, the governor was kind of a human version of Silky.
I sensed the Sarge slapping the back of my head while Sanaa laughed in the background. Bahati was front and foremost, deploying a Marine gaze over the governor even hungrier than mine.
The two other occupants of the room had stopped talking and were staring at me undressing the governor with my eyes.
Man, I needed to get some soon. And given the way Silky was drinking up my thoughts like Bahati in one of those moods, it occurred to me for the first time, so did she.
The governor cleared her throat. “Let me guess,” she said in a thick local accent that buzzed with amusement. “You, madam, were an officer in the war, and you, sir, a sergeant.”
“Is it that obvious?” I said.
“No,” she replied. “Relax, I’m a politician, not a mind reader. It’s my job to understand people.” She frowned. “But you would know about mind readers with your companion being a Kurlei. Madam, I did not know I had the honor of numbering one of your race in my province. Officially you do not exist.”
I felt Silky’s mind go hard and cold.
The governor raised her hands in a calming gesture. “It’s okay. Mader zagh! Don’t you wixering shunters get it? Klin-Tula is a frontier world and Hy-Nguay its wildest province. If I can leave my term of office with the province less lawless and violent then I’ll have served well. Believe me, mysteries such as the occasional off-grid empathic alien abound in these parts. You’re the least of my frakking worries, and although Laban was hazy with the details, I understand that if you prove your worth in ridding Hy-Nguay of its most odious citizen, I might look generously upon your past frakk-ups.”
I slapped my hand around the governor’s shoulders. “Anyone who curses like a Spacer is all right in my book, ma’am. Tell me, did your mother sail the voids in a tin can?”
“That she did, sir. And kindly remove your hand before I order it cut off.”
“Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”
“That’s better,” she said when I’d retreated a few paces. “Let’s start again. I’m Governor Shawnee Lawless and I thank you for your service today in taking down that skangat pervert, Mayor Philamon Dutch. No one but me and Laban Caccamo know you’re here. Philamon’ll be here in about…”
Surprise must have shown on my face, because she rolled her eyes at me. “Yes, my surname is Lawless, and yes, that is ironic. Wait, you’ve never heard my name before, have you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then I expect you’ve never voted either.”
“Never cared for it. I served three centuries in the Marines, ma’am. Even after we joined the Legion, the Corps wasn’t a democracy, and that’s just as well for all our sakes.”
Irritation flashed in the governor’s eyes. “You would prefer Klin-Tula to be under military rule?”
“Until things settle down, yes.”
She laughed. “Fates preserve me from the wisdom of old soldiers! You mean well, but what you don’t understand is that once power becomes a habit it is near impossible to relinquish. How long would it take before matters were judged to have settled down? A generation? A hundred generations? No, the federal and provincial governments must serve the people from the beginning or else my descendants will rule yours with as much cruelty as the White Knights once ruled us all. I know nothing of your war record beyond your name, Sergeant Joshua, but I can see from the way you carry yourself that you served humanity well in the War of Liberation. Would you now throw that all away?”
“No frakking way… ma’am.”
“Good, because the fight for liberty is far from over, and it will still be raging after we are all dead. You still have a role to play and I do not release you from your obligations. I accept that many in your generation of former soldiers will never fully trust democracy, but you must do all in your power to keep the institutions of this world stable, and largely free of corruption, so that my generation, and those who follow us, can build upon what we started here. From these crude and chaotic beginnings, we shall forge a world to be proud of. Klin-Tula was birthed in the blood of the fallen, and that bright future is their precious legacy, Marine. Guard it with your life.”
I swallowed hard, speech temporarily beyond me. Other humans say we Marines speak in a staccato monotone, devoid of passion and expression. The truth is that we don’t have the time to waste on the flowery gas that gushes in great clouds of verbiage from the mouths of lesser strands of the human races. Governor Lawless was nearly as concise and straightforward as a Marine, but she injected a magical quality to her words that tightened my chest.
“Sergeant Joshua. My words were not rhetorical. I gave you an order. Guard your legacy.”
I snapped to attention. “Negative, ma’am. Sergeant Joshua is dead. NJ McCall is a work in progress but he’s become a professional vigilante. I operate on the wrong side of the law.”
The governor’s eyes bore into me. Then her face creased in laughter.
“I know Laban well,” she explained when she’d calmed a little. “I need Revenge Squad for now. Petty crime has been down since you moved into the Slaughterhouse. I want you to address inter-species violence next.”
“Are you…?” I was going to ask if she was a LISTer, but phrases such as operational security, and I thought I could trust you to keep a secret came to mind.
“Is he always like this?” the governor asked Silky.
“Regrettably, yes, ma’am. My husband will address his immediate challen
ges with courage, determination and intelligence, and yet the strategic picture often eludes him.”
Governor Lawless nodded thoughtfully. “I apologize for my rudeness, McCall. You have served with honor, and you deserve better than my laughter because I believe you still do serve the people of Klin-Tula. The police commissioner’s head would explode if I said this in public, but Revenge Squad and your ilk play a key part in my law enforcement strategy.”
“Shawnee’s Specials,” Silky suggested.
“I like it,” said the governor, shaking my hand with a crisp grip.
“But if you ever say that name again,” she added as she shook Silky’s hand, “I will have you both assassinated. Now, to your posts. We have a mayor to bring to justice.”
We took positions behind a linen screen decorated with waterfalls cascading into a raging sea. It looked out of place to me, but what would I know about the décor demanded by a provincial governor?
The plan was simple enough, so long as everyone acted the way we hoped. In eight minutes, Mayor Dutch was due for a private meeting in the governor’s office about the state of emergency he’d declared in Port Zahir.
The governor would lure him in with firm handshakes and official-looking bundles of paper, and whatever else politicos needed to get themselves comfortable. Then she would hit him with a visual simulation of the events I had witnessed in the cells. It was pure fakery, but Chikune had crafted the images so convincingly out of my description of the events, that the mayor might just think this was admissible evidence dumped out of my head.
And to help the mayor along to giving himself away, from our hiding place behind the screen, Silky would break his spirit by giving him both barrels of her kesah-kihisia, loaded with guilt and despair. Naturally, everything would be recorded. Later – much later, when the mayor was caged and the congratulations began – we would raise the idea of a pardon.
Plan B was to beat the crap out of him until he confessed. It stood no chance of succeeding, but it would be the closest he’d get to justice.
“Once we’re done here,” I whispered to Silky, “this dumb-ass former NCO will need the benefit of your strategic vision.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No worries,” I said. “Only teasing. Actually, I was serious. Sel-en-Sek’s problem became my problem when Mr. Lee’s heavies hurt you, and after the mess I made blowing up the mayor’s ship I don’t trust my judgement. Is it best to kill the loan shark bastard, or to teach you cards so you can win the money to pay him off?”
Silky shook her head. “There’s nothing you could teach me at cards that I don’t already–”
The window cracked.
The governor grunted in horror.
I pushed over the screen. The governor was down on the thick carpet and gushing blood. The round had come through the window from the ornamental grounds outside. A humanoid, black-clad and with sniper rifle strapped over their back, was leaping over a low wall in the distance, about to disappear.
“Tell me if the assassin reappears,” I told Silky and then put the shooter from my mind.
All I could think of was how to keep Lawless alive.
I ripped open her jacket and blouse to get a good look at the frothing hole in her chest.
“It’s okay,” I told her, as I tore her jacket in two and folded each half into pads. “I know what to do.”
I pushed the pads against the entry and exit wounds and pressed hard.
“Assassin’s gone,” said Silky. She opened the door to the study, and yelled, “Help! Bring a medic!”
“Well?” the governor gasped, pleading at me with her eyes. “How bad is it?”
“Never give up hope, ma’am. Help is coming.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Marine.”
“Sorry, ma’am. You’re gonna die.”
“Crap,” she said, and then added falteringly, “Remember, Klin-Tula is the legacy of the fallen. Guard what we’ve built here.” With a groan, she closed her eyes.
“I will, ma’am.” I thought she was gone, but she pursed her lips and deepened her breathing, gearing up to speak.
As Silky hollered for help, I put my ear close to the governor’s mouth.
“Get…” she gasped through bubbles of blood.
“Get, ma’am,” I confirmed while she gathered her strength to continue.
I heard approaching footsteps racing our way. Finally.
“The…”
“Get the… Get what, Governor?”
She opened her eyes, and stared past my shoulder, her lips trembling as she summoned the energy for her final act.
I heard Silky close and lock the door.
“I’m still here, ma’am,” I reassured the dying governor. “Tell me what to get. Come on!”
Her final words came out as a long sigh. “Thefrakkouttahere.”
I felt her life leave with a last rattle in her lungs and then she was still.
I released the pressure on the makeshift trauma gear and looked at my hands. They dripped with the blood of Shawnee Lawless.
“Our presence may prove difficult to explain,” said Silky, pulling me away.
“But she was shot, and we don’t have a gun.”
“Governor!” shouted a man from outside as someone tried the door. “Are you all right?” There was banging on the heavy wood. “We heard a call for help.”
Other than the governor and Caccamo, no one knew we were here.
“Stand clear of the door, ma’am.”
I looked at the broken window in a new and critical light. Hairline cracks spread like a network of blood vessels but, other than a hole where the round penetrated, most of the glass was still in the frame. Window glass is much tougher than it looks, but not after a ballistic dart’s been through it. I ran at the window, twisting at the last moment to present my shoulder as I barreled through in a shower of glass shards.
I sensed Silky follow but I didn’t dare to stop. I sprinted down a courtyard with a sunken garden and vaulted over a low wall, pursued by a hail of bullets and darts. I rolled down a grass bank and kept running.
“You injured?” I called out.
“Not yet… this way.”
I followed Silky along a sunken path that ended in a gated archway.
It was locked.
I shoulder barged it but I just got a bruised shoulder.
Silky breathed in… and kept breathing in until her torso deformed, flattening until she could squirm underneath the gate.
A few seconds later I heard a key turn in a lock and the door opened on a grinning alien.
“What next?” I asked as soon as I was through and the gate re-locked.
Her grin evaporated. “I do not know. Nowhere is safe.”
Dogs barked in excitement, eager to be released.
“Then there is only one place we can go,” I said. “Onto the attack. But first we need to disappear.”
The barking ceased, the dogs loosed and after our scent.
“Rendezvous Point Delta?” I suggested.
I felt Silky’s agreement and then we were off down the backstreets, trying to put speed into our steps without appearing conspicuous.
From behind we could hear high-speed bikes start up with the distinctive rumble of gravitic motors that churned our guts to water.
We abandoned all caution and fled for our lives.
— CHAPTER 36 —
“I was right,” I said softly, moving away from the spy hole that looked out into the marketplace. “It is our faces on that wanted poster.”
Silky said nothing but beckoned me to the relative safety of the back room of the empty retail unit.
“There’s a 25,000 shilling reward for our capture,” I told her. “It feels good to know we’re valued.”
Unable to keep up the pretense of cheerfulness, I felt my mood sour. We were holed up in Rendezvous Point Delta, a boarded-up cheese and cured meats shop off Ghanns Street in the Ulthacalth Quarter. Our apartment would be watched. S
o would the Slaughterhouse. We might as well give ourselves up. Maybe the authorities would feel generous and give us the reward money.
I regarded my wife, squatting on the dusty floor. She looked trapped by the deep shadows.
“I’m sorry for bringing all this upon you, Silky.”
“I know.”
I tried to smile. “Of course you do.”
“NJ, you have apologized. Doing so should lift your mood, yet your spirits sink still further. Why?”
“Why?” Crazy alien. “Because I’ve put you in danger, and when I say danger… Hmm, let’s see… The mayor wants us dead. The government wants to execute us for shooting the governor. Let’s not forget our old boss, Holland Philby, who wants us dead too. And then there’s that gangster, Mrs. Gregory–”
“Do I need to come in and fix your faulty head? You made a judgment call when you blew those LTB-10s. Sure, it blew up in our faces, but what are you going to do about it? Weep? Have you given up, McCall?”
“No, of course not.”
“Sounds like it to me. Go on, then, what are you going to do about this mess?”
“Dunno. But I am gonna fix it. Somehow.”
“That’s better. Don’t ever feel sorry for yourself again. It’s pathetic, and we both know what happens if I lose respect for you.”
I felt like a green recruit. She was right.
“Have I arrived at a bad moment?” said a computer-generated voice from the window out into the loading bay.
I grabbed my knife, looked up, and saw a rubber-lipped Littorane peering at us. Silky began to draw the pistol she’d taken from the emergency cache, but stopped abruptly.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Can’t you see it’s K’Teene Schaek?”
“K’Teene K’Who?”
To the Littorane she said, “Please forgive my human.”
“Think nothing of it,” said the amphibious alien. “We all look the same to them, whereas I am more discerning about their race. I recognize Ndeki Joshua McCall from his under-chin hair, the attractive scarring, and his endearing combination of bewilderment and brutality.”
“Frakk off,” I told it. “I do know you. You’re the Marine who–”
Second Strike (Revenge Squad Book 2) Page 16
