Death's head dh-1

by David Gunn

  “Anyone else have an opinion?”

  Franc wants to attack from the front; Haze wants to hack into the batwings and corrupt them, preferably from the safety of a cellar several miles away. Neen’s already had his say, and Shil keeps glancing toward the tower.

  “Say it.”

  She shrugs.

  “That’s an order.”

  Tight-lipped, she scoops away a handful of dirt, and then carves a line next to it with her dagger. She’s looking at me as she does this.

  “Okay,” she says. “That’s the river…and this is their tower.” She stabs her dagger hard into the depression. Taking Neen’s dagger, she cuts a much shorter line from her river to the edge of the dip. “That’s our canal.”

  Standing up, she fills her hands with water from a puddle and tips the water slowly into the tiny river, letting it run through the canal into the depression.

  “Welcome to my world,” she says. “Where if you’re not trying to find water, you’re trying to get rid of it.”

  The others nod.

  If we had a combat satellite we could burn the ditch with that. Of course, if we had a high-orbit laser we wouldn’t need to cut a ditch, because we could obliterate the tower without damaging the ghetto around it. This makes me wonder where General Jaxx’s mother ship has gone.

  All the same, it’s a neat answer to a difficult question and it should keep the U/Free observer happy.

  So I go find Major Silva. “Can you give me troops?”

  The major looks slightly shocked. When he comes back it’s with Colonel Nuevo. The U/Free observer is following along behind.

  “I hear you want more men.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How many?”

  “About five hundred.”

  Colonel Nuevo’s eyes widen. He doesn’t like being surprised in front of Paper Osamu. “You want to attack the tower with five hundred men?”

  “No, sir. I want them to dig a ditch and flood it.”

  I can tell he’s disappointed. We’re his suicide squad, afraid of nothing. We exist to irritate his other officers, keep them unsettled. Safe options and engineered solutions are not welcome.

  “Haze,” I say. “Explain to the colonel why this makes sense.”

  The boy looks stricken. He’s fumbling for a reason when he stumbles over the real one. “There’s an Uplifted inside, sir.”

  Haze thinks about it some more and realizes the obvious. “The Uplifted is controlling the batwings. So it’s still fully functioning.”

  “If we destroy the tower,” I say, “we risk killing the thing.”

  The colonel gets his smile back.

  Five hundred men dig for the best part of a day. Being militia, they expect the shitty jobs. I want the mercenaries to do it, but it isn’t my choice and Major Silva insists they’re being saved for later. The grim satisfaction in his voice when he says this is reassuring.

  Warnings are broadcast and transport is arranged. And when everything is ready, the women, children, and old men are evacuated under the suspicious gaze of Paper Osamu, licensed witness and plenipotentiary for the U/Free. We begin to flood the tower just before nightfall.

  Back at the house, Neen retires to his room, while Haze goes to play with his slabs. Franc excuses herself, and about an hour later the smell of baking fills the house.

  “Didn’t know we had a drexler.”

  “We don’t,” says Maria. “She’s making it by hand.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really.”

  She grins at the look on my face. “You want coffee?”

  “Sure,” I say. “I’ll be in the study.”

  The coffee is hot and strong and Maria makes enough for two. Realizing Lord Filipacchi’s ornate desk is buried under my open maps, she places her tray carefully on the floor. The maps are printouts showing Ilseville as it used to be, which is pretty much the same as it is now except for the newly flooded area and old warehouses where temples now stand.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Checking a few things.”

  “I’ll be downstairs,” she says, picking up her mug. “If, you know…”

  “If what?”

  “You want me.”

  Taking the mug from her hand, I put it on top of a map and turn Maria toward me, raising her face with one hand. “What’s to doubt?” Reaching for her dress, I undo the first two buttons.

  “Not here, sir,” she says.

  “Where then?”

  I should be studying the map and working out my best route into that tower, but the truth is I’ll probably riff it anyway, because planning and I never got on that well to start with. Most battles are simple: The fastest and the nastiest group wins. Anyone tells you different probably has red tabs under his or her insignia and issues orders from several miles behind the front line.

  Maria and I go to her room together.

  Her body is as full as it was last time, and her nipples are still pale enough to be almost invisible, but I see things I didn’t notice then, like the neatly sewn track of a bullet scar above one hip. She’d been shot from behind, then given medical treatment by an outfit who obviously knew what they were doing.

  “Long story,” she says.

  I have enough sense not to ask.

  We sleep and fuck and sleep some more, and dawn finds us in the bath, Maria behind me scrubbing my back with what seems to be the dried skin of a local slug. After a while I decide that I’m clean enough and we swap positions, although not much back scrubbing is done once I’m behind her.

  I’ve just picked Maria up by the hips when there’s a tentative knock at the door.

  “Sir…” It’s Neen.

  Yesterday he’d have come straight into the bathroom; today he knows Maria’s in here with me. So does Shil, because her eyes refuse to catch mine when we meet on the stairs, both struggling into our jackets.

  “Lieutenant Tveskoeg?”

  The boy’s young, little older than Neen, but his uniform is immaculate and silver braid waterfalls from his left shoulder. The poor little shit’s even wearing a dress dagger, hung from a chain on his hip.

  “You’re a new staff officer?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hope you last longer than the last one.”

  He chews his lip. “The colonel requires you.”

  “Be with you in a moment.”

  “Sir…” He hesitates, not yet secure in Death’s Head arrogance and unused to borrowing the power of whomever sent the message. “He requires you now.”

  “And I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  My group dress in their new uniforms, which are Death’s Head issue with all the distinguishing marks cut away and skin patches sewn in their place. The boy blinks, opens his mouth, and shuts it again.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Benj…”

  “Your other name.”

  “Flypast, sir. Second Lieutenant Benj Flypast.”

  I shake his hand, which he doesn’t expect, then introduce him to the group, which he expects even less. “And this is Haze,” I say. “Our expert on Uplifted and Enlightened.”

  Both boys blush.

  The colonel is waiting impatiently near the tower. Having flooded the area, the militia are now busy pumping the water out again. Apparently a number of enemy soldiers tried to escape on a homemade raft in the night, but they didn’t make it. A row of bodies provides evidence.

  Our side has experts, real experts. Officers who trained on Death’s Head scholarships and intelligence analysts who’ve spent their entire lives studying the enemy. I’m not even sure why my group is here.

  Pretty soon I find out.

  “Enter the tower,” orders Colonel Nuevo. “Kill anything you like, except the Uplifted.”

  Water has stained each room. Sometimes the water has risen to the ceiling; other times the positioning of windows means layers of air got trapped. This is made obvious by tide marks high up on a couple of walls. I begin
to see why the colonel wants my groups to check the building first.

  Just to make the job interesting, he’s landed me with Lieutenant Flypast, who needs bloodying. So now the boy hangs back and holds his pulse rifle as if it’s about to turn around and bite him.

  “Report,” I tell Neen.

  “Clear, sir.”

  “Very good. Carry on.”

  So far we’ve swept eleven floors, with only one kill. An old man huddled over a crude fire. He’d obviously hidden himself rather than be evacuated, not one of life’s better decisions.

  It looks like there’s one, maybe two more floors to go, and logic tells me this is where anyone waiting to attack us will be.

  “Right,” I tell Neen. “Take us up a level.”

  He hits the stairs, rifle ported across his front. Shil follows, with Haze and Franc behind her. Benj trails after them and I bring up the rear. Neen is good at this, but he’s angry with me about Maria and it shows in the way he carries himself. His shoulders are locked and his movements overrapid.

  Bollocking someone for not staying chilled is counterproductive, so I swallow my irritation.

  “Hold it.” Neen’s instruction filters down the line.

  A creak comes from overhead. It could be metal warming in what passes for this planet’s sunlight; alternatively, it could be someone with a gun. It’s Neen’s call and he has to be allowed to make it.

  Our galaxy is rumored to be full of planets able to adjust their own weather, but most of these reside in the center and are owned by the United Free. The Enlightened have their Dyson habitat, also climate-controlled and endlessly enjoyable, but they keep that for themselves. As for our beloved leader…OctoV believes in traditional values, which is just as well, because he certainly can’t afford any new ones.

  “Back…” Neen drops to a crouch, signaling for everyone to retreat. Shil hesitates and I grab her ankle, pulling her down a handful of stairs. She manages to take the bumps in silence.

  “Wait,” Neen orders.

  Edging forward, he vanishes almost from sight.

  Neen’s call, I remind myself.

  But that doesn’t stop me from getting impatient.

  So I make myself listen to the noises inside and out while trying not to notice Shil’s hips, which are next to my face. Part of my irritation is at not being able to use my gun. Apparently the Uplifted are worse than the Enlightened for being able to read data patterns. Use my gun in here and I might as well climb the stairs shouting, Hi, it’s Sven, anyone home?

  That the SIG’s version anyway. Of course, it might simply be sulking about Paper Osamu. Shifting pipes disturb the air around me. From outside comes the noise of a pump as engineers drain the last of the floodwater, and the five hundred militia who dug yesterday’s canal prepare to fill it in again. The air through an open window smells sour, because the flood has opened sewers and made latrines overspill their banks.

  “Not yet,” I whisper when Shil starts to shift forward.

  The sniper hiding in the room above gets bored before we do. A handle creaks and a face peers through a gap. He’s looking straight ahead when he should be looking down, and Neen’s shot takes him under the chin, painting the ceiling behind him with blood, skull, and brains.

  “Move…”

  Another two Uplifted go down as Neen sweeps the room. They’re already dead by the time I hit the door.

  “Good call.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Neen looks at me, then looks at his sister, and makes a decision. “Permission to…”

  I nod.

  “Please don’t send Shil to another unit.”

  “Why would I?”

  “Shil said she asked you to make Franc sergeant instead of me, and now you’re angry with her.”

  “Forget it,” I tell him. “I already have.”

  The Uplifted sits in one corner. Wherever the thing originally sat it wasn’t here, because a bundle of filaments have been slashed in a hurry. A huge diamond nestles in anemone optic, a jumble of teraflips are tied into the matrix memory, and the thing is pulsing like festival lights.

  Something tells me the colonel is going to be pleased.

  CHAPTER 34

  Who’s running the water?”

  “Haze, sir,” says Franc, slicing dried fruit onto a wooden board. I can’t help but notice she’s using the blade she used to stab the old woman and the guard outside the Trade Hall.

  We’re in the kitchen, and pipes are hammering in the corner. The last time anyone but Haze went into Lord Filipacchi’s bathroom, it was so damp that tiles had begun to fall from the walls.

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  She shakes her head.

  “Something you want to tell me?”

  Franc shakes her head at that, too. “Please, sir,” she says. “Leave it.” Something about the way she says this is almost desperate. She’s put the knife down and is facing me full-on, completely defenseless. Sometimes it’s how people behave without realizing it that matters.

  “He’s not what he seems, is he?”

  That gets her attention. “In what way, sir?” Franc asks.

  I think about it. “He’s a girl after all.”

  Franc laughs. “Oh,” she says. “He’s definitely male.” And then her face goes red and it’s obvious she’s wondering how to approach something. I’m her boss, her commanding officer, but something is worrying her at a much deeper level.

  “Tell me.”

  “Please,” she says. “Let it go, sir.”

  That’s not the way the army works.

  But she’s already moved on. “He trusts you,” she says. “And there’s something else, sir.” Franc hesitates. “Your gun told Haze he required a role model. You’re it.”

  “Franc…”

  “It did, sir. I’m serious.”

  So am I. “He’s a soldier,” I tell her. “An auxiliary. He obeys my orders. That’s all there is to it. And tell him to stay away from my gun.”

  By the end of the week a routine is established. Maria buys food and Franc cooks it; Neen spends his nights on the town, or he does for the first three nights then stops when he realizes Maria is no longer coming to my bed.

  She’s sweet, more than willing.

  But I’m restless and know myself well enough to know when I need to sleep alone. There’s a taste like static in my mouth and an ache behind my eyes that I only ever get in the last few days before a battle.

  As for Haze, he takes baths, plays with his machines, and comes out only when he feels like it. And then one morning, toward the end of the week, there’s no heat in the house and no hot water and I find Haze in the kitchen, swaddled in towels, being comforted by Franc.

  “Coffee,” I demand.

  Franc makes it, which involves lighting a fire in a bucket, using broken bits of kitchen chair, a handful of wooden cooking utensils, and sparks from a tinder stick, which she carries on her belt.

  “Bring it to my study.”

  She nods, but it’s Haze who arrives at my door with coffee and news. Insurgents have killed our electricity. Instead of doing the obvious and hitting the power core, they chose to blow up the pumping station next door. Without water the power station has had to shut down. “Thought you might want this, sir.”

  He hands me a power pack.

  “For my gun?”

  Haze nods, looking guilty.

  “I’ve told you…”

  Now he’s scared as well. “We only chat, sir. That’s all.”

  “About what?”

  “Azimuth and angle, how to trig building heights. Really basic stuff. It’s just, sometimes I need to talk tech.”

  He’s serious.

  Tossing him the SIG diabolo, I say, “Clean it, check the power, and fill any clips that need filling, but remember who owns it. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, because otherwise I’ll put you up against a wall myself.”

  The night after the attack on the pumping statio
n, a suicide squad targets Colonel Nuevo’s HQ, and the most beautiful house on Ilseville Square becomes rubble. The colonel is dining at a restaurant nearby; Major Silva and Benj Flypast are asleep in rooms on the third and fourth floors, respectively.

  I wake to find sappers still sorting through the rubble, and smoke from the explosion still drifting across the square. And a knock on my door tells me it’s going to be one of those mornings.

  “Sir…”

  It’s Maria, which means she’s had to roll out of Neen’s fur-covered bed, dress herself half decently, and climb two flights of stairs to my turret. She’s out of breath, but that’s not necessarily from climbing the stairs.

  “I know.”

  We’re seeing a pattern here. A pattern familiar from any occupied city. Maria’s moved from sharing my bed to sharing Neen’s. In the scheme of things it’s probably a wise move. And who knows, maybe she actually likes him.

  Shuffling on my uniform, I head downstairs and answer the front door myself. Passing messages back and forth simply wastes time. A boy, even younger than the last one, stands on my doorstep. His chest looks too thin for its waterfall of silver braid.

  “Sir, the colonel, sir, he wants-”

  “To see me.”

  The new second lieutenant nods.

  “We’ll be there.”

  “No, sir. He just wants to see you. ”

  I take my team anyway.

  “Sven…”

  The colonel is standing by a window; two serious-looking men sit at a table behind him. They look anxious, tired, and rather afraid. Engineers, I think, still failing to give us back our power. The house to which I’ve been led is large, just not as large as the one that lies in ruins three streets away.

  “Good,” he says. “You came alone.”

  “They’re waiting out there,” I tell him, nodding toward his office door.

  Colonel Nuevo sighs.

  The two men at the table might as well not exist for all the attention he’s paying them. Taking two glasses from a silver tray, the colonel pours me something clear and bitter. I get the feeling he’s really pouring one for himself. “I need a new ADC…” He raises his glass. “You’re it.”