The Death and Life of Schneider Wrack

by Nate Crowley

  “Maybe we could have repaired things, you know?” wondered Aroha. “Maybe we could have made it a home together again, with Tamati grown up and all. Why did I stay away so long? Why did I wait until it was too late for us to be a family?”

  Mouana let him soliloquy, nodding and grunting where appropriate as she swept aside the garbage the Cauldron Company had left behind. No wonder they’d been relieved of the siege, she thought—they’d run this dugout more like a drinking den than a command post, and the section’s lines weren’t in much better shape. From what she’d heard from the other battery commanders, the whole circumvallation was a shambles, and they were going to have to work quick to fix things before the defenders took advantage.

  Aroha rambled on. She could sympathise, mind. The letter he’d received had been gut-wrenching, and besides, she knew plenty about staying at arm’s length from family. But a despondent captain was the last thing they needed right now. The man needed to make his mind up, before word made it up the hierarchy and a decision was made for him.

  “So go home,” said Mouana, more angrily than she’d intended, and Aroha stopped short. “You’ve been doing this for years, and you’ve already missed one chance at being a family. You’re not going to feel any more of a father to him staying out here, and don’t kid yourself you’ll go home when this siege is over. Given its track record, it’ll outlive both of us. So go home, and make things as right as you can.”

  Mouana wondered how she could say these words with a straight face, given how she would scoff if Aroha ever told her the same thing. But then, it was always easier to give others the advice you needed yourself. And anyway, it was different for Aroha. He had joined up to avoid being elsewhere. She joined because she had work to do. Mouana would stay until she was ready to come home; until she knew she had made things right. He’d already stayed too long.

  “Right,” said Aroha, fishing a flask from his inside pocket. “So I go knocking on Dust’s wagon, ask if I can go home to patch things up with what’s left of my family? Because besides her boundless sense of empathy, she’s renowned for her expertise in dealing with family issues.”

  Mouna gawped, her eyes flicking from the captain’s flask to his face, and then to the shadows of the dugout, as if the words themselves would summon the general. “Affeschiesse, Aroha. Are you pissed?”

  “Yeah, a bit,” smirked the older officer. Mouana had no idea how she’d missed it.

  “Well, shut up ’til you sober up, before you leave Tamati a bloody orphan.” The captain leapt to his feet, steadied himself on the map desk with a balled fist, but she carried on. “You know what a bad idea it is to gossip about the general. Anyone could walk in here and hear you, and you know word travels. Remember Ludovico, with that campfire song after Three Valleys?”

  “Of course I remember—we all remember. Poor shit begged for our help for three days before passing, and none of us so much as looked at him for fear of a bullet in the head. That’s just the sort of understanding leader she is. Why the hell did we sign up to a company run by a complete fucking monster, anyway?”

  “Because she wins everything she touches, and because we’re mercenaries,” spat Mouana, flinging out an arm to take in the rat-tracked squalor of the dugout. “Perhaps you’d have been happier pissing your life away with a company like the Cauldron, but I doubt it. And if you’re done with life with the Blades, then go. But don’t start with this kind of talk.”

  Aroha was drunker than she thought. The man had discipline like no-one else, but whatever that letter had meant to him, it had rattled him right out of his cage. Mouana felt some relief when he sat back on the bench with a sigh, and got back to the task of wiring up the console. After a few minutes, however, when she was down under the desk trying to find a dry patch for a router, he piped up again, slow and snide, like blood from a stitched wound.

  “I suppose you’d know her best, wouldn’t you,” suggested Aroha, punctuated by the slosh of spirit. “Seeing as you’ve been working so closely with her since you shot old Tassie on the plateau. Probably firm friends by now. But don’t forget I’ve been with her for longer, even if I’ve kept my distance. I know we’re not meant to talk about the damned stories, but I’ve heard them all. You know about her home, right, Mou? Someone as invested in sibling rivalry as you, you must’ve heard how they dealt with it back where she’s from?”

  Mouana got up from her work, wiped her hands free of mud, and locked eyes with the captain. He was wasted, no doubt about it, and there was going to be no end to this but to hear him out. She just hoped to the Tin King that nobody walked in before he was done.

  “I know enough,” she answered, calm as a rainy dawn. “Know the first thing she did, when she took on the Blades, was go back there and wipe the place out for what they’d done. Don’t need to know any more.”

  “Yeah, you don’t need to,” said Aroha with a sneer. “But you’d fucking love to, wouldn’t you?”

  Mouana folded her arms noncommittally.

  “Wasn’t often anyone even managed childbirth, back on Dust,” said Aroha, spitting on the dugout floor. “What with the rads and the poison and the famines. Rarer still anyone made it to full-grown, after those hunts they put them through. But you know what their law said should happen when too many kids came of age in one year?”

  Mouana gave the smallest shake of her head.

  “They’d pair ’em off. Siblings first, then friends. Pair ’em off, and leave ’em in a cave in the worst part of the desert for two months, far out on the salt flats, where the ichthydaimones spawned. One sack of rations, they gave them. One between each pair. And not rations like these,” he snarled, chomping at the ’drickmeat for effect. “It was that Dust shit—crickets and cave mold and wafers made from sawdust and rat shit and all the rest. And all of it, if you split the fucking waterskins and licked the seams, sucked every crumb from your thin fingers, might keep one of you alive for the duration. But they put two of you in there. Dust went in with her brother.”

  Movement flickered at the end of the long tunnel leading into the dugout. Mouana’s eyes widened, and she stared over Aroha’s shoulder. She made the sign, the sign they’d use in the thunder of a barrage to signal an engine overheat, the sign that meant everything had to stop before a boiler ruptured. But Aroha wasn’t paying attention, just carried on with glazed eyes. She had seconds at best before whoever was coming walked into his drunken rant.

  “They worked out the maths soon enough,” rumbled Aroha. “Share the food and you’d starve before they came to get you; start the fight too late and you’d die of thirst.”

  The bitter scent of herbs came to Mouana, preceding the new arrival, and her heart seized. She knew the smell. It wasn’t just some private come to relay a message, it was Dust herself, and if she shouted now, there was no way the general wouldn’t ask what the fuss was all about. Mouana dived back below the desk, drew her knife, and snatched at the wires spilling from the back of the dugout’s raid siren.

  “It all came down to who found a sharp rock first,” spouted Aroha. “Who was prepared to give up and go full fucking animal before the other. And our dear leader—”

  His sentence ran into a wall of sound as the siren slammed on, a piercing wail designed to alert half a mile of trench to an air assault even above the booming of their own guns. Setting it off would no doubt incur a punishment, but the alternative was unthinkable.

  Mouana leapt up from below the desk cursing emphatically, just as Aroha jumped up from the bench with a stunned expression, and Dust appeared in the room. They made a strange tableau for a moment; Dust peering at the siren built into the ceiling, then down at Mouana with slightly narrowed eyes, while Aroha stared straight at her, eyes wide in profound thanks.

  Calmly, yet quicker than Mouana could register, Dust had set down her tea, drawn her pistol and put a bullet through the siren, silencing it with a choking squawk.

  “The state they left this place in,” chided the general, someth
ing like amusement smouldering in her expression. “Alarms going off all by themselves.” The sudden silence stretched like a string of drool from an animal’s jaws, and Aroha was clearly fighting not to shake as he stared at the floor. Dust turned her head a fraction towards him, then appeared to think better of it and fixed Mouana with a perfectly neutral expression.

  “You are needed in the freight yard, commander,” said Dust, as if chiding a schoolboy late for a class. “Kronos has finally been shipped in, and you will need to oversee the installation of his manufactory feed. I thought we could take the opportunity to review the placement of the heavy battery on the way.”

  “Yes, general,” said Mouana in the most ordinary register, as if there was nothing unusual about the situation, although every muscle in her body was tensed.

  “Very good,” answered Dust with a nod, before turning back to the entrance corridor without so much as a glance at Aroha. As she left to follow, Mouana locked eyes with the older man for the briefest moment, long enough to convey that they would never, ever resume the conversation they had been having.

  There was silence as Mouana followed Dust down the corridor, melting gradually into the clamour of the unfolding siege as they stepped out into daylight.

  “It was roach meal, you know,” mused Dust, looking up as a heavy lifter rumbled overhead with a railgun strapped to its belly.

  “Roach meal, sir?”

  “Not crickets,” said the general, peering at her. “Those were for feast days. Roach meal was the main component of the daily ration. And cave mold, yes. But not sawdust either. There were no trees.”

  Mouana was stunned; her mouth flapped like a landed fish and her heart fluttered. It took all her composure to force out a sound. “Sir, he’s a good soldier, and—”

  “Minor details, commander,” said Dust, with the ghost of a smile. “I’m not going to hang him over a confusion of insects, am I? Now, we have a battery to see to. Walk with me.” The general turned and moved away down the trench, and Mouana followed on shaking legs.

  They had gotten away with it. Mouana knew that they had. But as the sky deepened to the colour of wine and the general’s form began to twist like a knot of worms, the relief drained, and Mouana recognised with sick familiarity that the memory was changing.

  Dust turned back to her and her face dissolved into oily smoke, no longer distinguishable from the darkening sky. Only her eyes remained, simmering like the coals of a forge as they swam closer to her.

  “I will forgive a lot,” they growled, as the rest of the world became black. “But not betrayal, Mouana. And not theft. You have stolen from me, and I am coming to take what is mine.”

  The words rose to a shriek, and the general’s eyes surged forward. Mouana thrashed and tried to claw her way from the false memory, but knew she could not leave. Not until the blade came. And there it was, plunging at her chest, its final thrust seeming to slow to a crawl as the tip pierced her skin.

  MOUANA SCREAMED, AND a hundred firelit faces stared at her in shock. She was back on the quarterdeck of Gunakadeit, and looking out over what appeared to be a party. The hatch over the hold had been bolted and a great firebowl set up, over which birds were roasting on skewers.

  Around the fire, rebels and dead folk stood stunned by her outburst, stories dying on their tongues. A set of bagpipes wheezed to a low moan, and there was an embarrassed scuffling as a burly woman and a dead man, both stripped to the waist, abandoned an uncoordinated dance-off.

  “What the fuck do you all think you’re doing?” rasped Mouana, her words landing like the drops of fat in the firebowl. The crew looked up at her sheepishly. All that moved was the smoke from the fire, coiling into the red-lit cowl of mist that swallowed the sea. It was Kaba that answered, stepping forward and kneading the side of her cracked jaw.

  “It’s tradition, sir. My idea. Every time a boat makes the transit, you feed up and get the helmsman a drink. Washes away the problems of one world, so you’re fresh for the next. Look at the, mist sir,” said the old boatwoman, gesturing at the fog that filled the gathering night. “The river’s breath, coming hot through the gate. We’re close now.”

  “Then pack up the damned fire and get to stations,” growled Mouana, rattling the quarterdeck’s rail with her good hand. “Drinking and bloody dancing won’t help us with our problems. Our problems are following us, and they’re bigger than any of you know. Fucking Dust is coming for us, and she’s not one for parties.”

  Without another word, the crew began to pack up the festivities, dousing the fire and packing food into sacks with little more than a murmur of disappointment.

  Then the bagpipes started up again. Mouana was indignant for a moment, until she saw their player was closing the clasps on the instrument’s case. As the drone grew louder, so did her fear.

  Talk of the Devil, thought Mouana, and she shall appear.

  Turning back to the ship’s stern, she looked out into the thick mist that swirled in its wake. The sound came from behind them, a low drone that swelled and waned with the breeze. As she stared, a line of faint lights appeared high in the mist, each surrounded by a nimbus of fog.

  “Triremes!” cried Mouana, just as the Asinine Bastard, its crew presumably spotting them at the same moment, sounded its foghorn.

  “Triremes! Triremes!” The call rose along the ship’s deck, underscored by the boom of the horn, and all thought of clearing the feast was forgotten—as Mouana hurried to the helm, sailors ran about the steaming embers of the fire, calling each other to stations. They had minutes at best until the aircraft were on top of them.

  “Shall we turn her about to bring the prow guns to bear?” called Kaba, hands poised on the ship’s wheel, as armed sailors rushed into the cabin.

  “No—give the engines all you can, and make for the gate. They’re here to capture us, not sink us, so the real fight’ll be on deck. Get the Gun and the Pentangle on the radio and bring them close alongside—close enough for boarding, if it comes to that—then get as many guns as’ll move back to the stern. Get me Eunice and the Bruiser to anchor the defence, and raise me Fingal on the Bastard.”

  “Do you see ’em?” asked Mouana as the line came open, holding the receiver to her bloodless lips as she craned through the bridge cabin’s rear windows.

  “Clear as day,” came Fingal’s ashtray voice, almost fresher-sounding in death than it had been in life. “Four Alaunt-class and a Mastiff, looks like, plus an Aquila hanging in the back for heavy lifting. All L-T colours too, so I’m guessing looted from the city defence. Mastiff’s coming in fast and dropping low, gunships are splitting off—guess the action’s coming your way.”

  “Fine. Make speed with us as best you can, drop your running lights, and get as many bullets in that thing as you can as it passes. After that, it’s up to you—do all you can to get us through that gate.”

  “Roger that,” snarled Fingal, and Mouana threw down the radio, before snatching a rifle and aiming an accusatory finger at Kaba.

  “As for you, stay on that wheel. No clever tricks, no changes of plan. Just get us through, and sound the horn when we’re a minute away so the living can get below deck. Eunice, Bruiser, you’re with me at the stern. Get aggressive.”

  “Fack off!” bellowed the bruiser with glee, delivering a knuckle-cracking punch to Eunice’s shoulder as the towering warbuilt grumbled her approval. A cheer sounded as they moved onto the deck and made for the stern; cadavers waved shotguns in salute from behind improvised barricades, and living rebels crouched with them, grinning as they checked their weapons.

  There was an electric mood in the air; after two days of uncertain pursuit, the crew was itching to have something to shoot at. The drone of the triremes filled the sky now, though the attackers had killed their lights to disguise their approach. Every sailor in the mass was squinting into the rolling mist, looking for something to aim at.

  As they passed the turrets on the ship’s flank, which in its former life would have h
oused the warbuilt as it pursued monsters across Ocean’s depths, Mouana had Eunice tear free one of the chainguns salvaged from the Bargain. The weld had been hasty and the gun came free with a little more than a tug, but still the sailors cheered as Eunice held it above her head and bellowed.

  Mouana waved the mob of defenders to their places across the ship’s rear deck, and took a guilty glance at the console she couldn’t quite bring herself to untape from her arm. She had seen trireme raids countless times during the siege and knew that, despite the crew’s eagerness for a fight, they were going to need everything they could bring to bear just to have a chance of scraping through. Although she knew there was sod-all chance of an answer, she had to at least ask for Wrack’s help. WRACK. KNW YR SULKING. BT SLDRS R CMING TO GT U. LOTS. HLP?

  The reply came quicker, and left her much angrier, than she expected.

  I SEE. THANKS, BUT I’VE HAD ENOUGH KILLING FOR A BIT, AND I’M AT A REALLY GOOD BIT IN MY BOOK. KNOW YOU WANT TO KEEP HOLD OF ME, BUT IF IT’S ALL THE SAME TO YOU, I’LL SIT OUT THIS ROUND OF SLAUGHTER AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

  Hissing a string of curses that reached deep into her soldier’s vocabulary, Mouana went to rip the console from her arm, only to find her mangled hand couldn’t grasp it firmly enough. She settled for smashing the screen against a railing. After that, there was no more time to spare on thinking about Wrack, because the night was on fire.

  Tracer bullets streaked from the turrets of the Bastard, filling the dark with orange hail behind them, then spilled green light on the sea as they found the Mastiff. Illuminated by the fizzing of bullets against its shields, the assault carrier barrelled towards them over the waves, a jagged black mass in a flaring shell. Alongside it, sleek as barracudas, a pair of Alaunt gunships accelerated ahead of the larger craft.

  “Hold your fire!” called Mouana, as the juggernauts swooped toward them. “Keep down!”