by David Gunn
‘Just listen,’ the five-braid says, eyes flicking sideways. He’s scared, angry and nervous. Bad mix, it makes me glad I’m the one holding the SIG. Something in the braid’s glance suggests Haze told him I would be willing to listen. I’m not sure why he thinks that. I’m no more of a braid than—
‘Listen,’ suggests Shil.
I glare at her. She’s meant to be staying out of this.
Hell, we don’t even know each other. At least, not where the braid’s concerned. But Shil has her gaze on me and on Haze, and there’s something furious in her look. As if she’d like to bang our heads together.
‘You’ve got thirty seconds,’ I tell the braid.
‘Twenty-nine,’ says the gun. It counts us down to three, then two, and it’s about to hit one when I ruin its day and jack out the hollow-point. The shell bounces on the floor and rolls under the bed.
‘What did you do that for?’ it demands.
‘I’m listening,’ I tell the SIG.
I am as well.
According to the braid my DNA is close to the humanoid original. I don’t have plus point eight per cent anything. Everyone else has stuff taken out. Of course, that doesn’t mean I come from Earth . . .
The braid shakes his head.
How could I, when Earth never existed?
But I’m as close to the template as he’s seen. So, he says, if I want I can call myself the last human. This seems to be a joke. And I’m ready to let him know how I feel about that when I decide I’d better keep listening.
At Haze’s suggestion, the braid is offering me a job. A job, and rapid promotion from a rank that isn’t mine to start with. It takes me a second to realize he’s offering me General Tournier’s job.
All I have to do is drop down five levels and kill the man.
Chapter 47
EARTH NEVER EXISTED. ANYONE WHO SAYS IT DID IS A HERETIC and a doubter of the truth. That Earth story is a myth made up by heretics to explain why life became more complicated several centuries ago. Only it didn’t . . . Get more complicated, that is. That’s another myth. Equally vile. The universe has always been exactly as it is.
The five-braid glares at me. ‘You accept that?’ he says.
I tell him it never occurred to me it hadn’t.
He nods, begins talking about the singularity, and stops when he realizes I’m still playing catch-up with his first lot of words. We move on to things he reckons I can understand.
No alcohol, no paintings, no eating cold-water reptiles, no sex between races (or perhaps it’s species) . . . I’ve stopped listening by the time he gets halfway through his list of things I’ll need to give up when I come over to his side.
As offers go, it’s tempting.
Not for what I’ll give up but for what I’ll gain. Ten per cent of the stock value of any rebel Octovian planet I take. And I’ll be leading a legitimate army, so anyone who opposes us is automatically a rebel.
There’s a sliding scale of fees for everything from captured villages to capital cities and enemy ships. The sums he’s talking about are enormous. You could hire a Legion brigade for a year. No, you could buy the whole bloody Legion, desert forts and all.
I am not sure I even knew that much gold existed.
All he wants in return is to run some tests and take a quick look inside my skull. For a moment, I think he wants to open up my head. But he means he needs free access to my thoughts.
I can think of several reasons why this is a bad idea. One of them sits scowling in the bed behind me. How much poking around does a five-braid have to do before he realizes Shil and I have history?
‘So,’ he says. ‘Do we have a deal?’
A five-braid and me. Now there is an unlikely combination. ‘What’s the security like on your ship?’
My question puzzles him.
‘If I’m going to kill the general . . .’
He smiles, thinking he has agreement. ‘Lenz,’ he says, ‘the usual stuff. Doors talk to each other, elevators communicate, maintenance bots feed visuals to the ship’s AI. Nothing serious.’
The gun snorts.
‘Here,’ says the braid. Pulling a small disc from the inside pocket of his uniform, he touches it to an identical disc on his collar.
‘What does it do?’ I demand.
‘Security override. Wear this and you’re invisible to the ship’s monitors.’
Taking it, I fix it to my own collar and turn back. Maybe I should just kill him now? It’s hard to know. I’m trying to be cool, but I’m not sure how I’ll react if he starts poking around inside my skull.
‘Get on with it,’ I say. ‘Before I change my mind.’
Something lifts the edge of my mind, and I slam it down, pure instinct. Shil screams. I think it’s because my arm is back to strike. But I’m wrong.
Having grabbed the dagger from my belt, Haze is sawing it across the braid’s throat. The Enlightened does that flickering thing as he tries to take himself somewhere else. But my elbow spike in his chest locks him into the present.
As Haze finishes, I let go the braid and he drops, sliding off the spike with a wet sucking sound.
———
I rip the clocking device from the fallen five-braid’s collar, then turn back. ‘We’ve only got two of these,’ I tell Haze. ‘There are three of us. Can you make yourself invisible to the lenz?’ Only he’s not listening. He’s too busy helping Shil from the bed.
‘Are you all right?’ he asks. ‘I mean . . . Did they . . . ?’
‘No,’ she says, abruptly. ‘They didn’t.’
Haze waits.
‘One tried,’ she adds with a shrug. Her voice is sour. ‘Thanks for asking, I think.’
‘Shil,’ I say.
‘Later,’ she says. ‘Sir.’
‘Well,’ I ask Haze. ‘Can you?’ Only he’s still not paying attention. Must be something about this ship. It makes me feel odd too.
‘We need to talk,’ he says.
‘Haze.’
‘Sir—‘ He stops. ‘The general told me to watch you.’
‘You mean Tournier?’
‘No, sir . . . Jaxx, sir. Before we left.’
‘General Jaxx? ‘ ‘Yes, sir.’ Why didn’t you tell me? But I already know. When someone like Jaxx says keep something quiet you keep it quiet. The alternative is having Horse Hito rip your tongue through a slit in your neck. And that is if you get lucky.
‘Why tell me now?’ It’s obvious that Shil wants an answer to this too.
Taking a deep breath, Haze says, ‘Almost didn’t. Almost let the five-braid turn you. Would have done, probably. But . . .’ He shrugs. ‘We’re the Aux. That has to count for something.’ He looks around him and shivers.
‘What?’ Shil asks.
‘You can’t feel it, can you?’
She shakes her head.
‘No,’ he says. ‘I thought not. Hekati’s dying.’ Walking across to the line of bottles, he examines the labels until his hand stops over a dumpy-looking flask. ‘Shil?’ he asks.
She shakes her head.
‘Sir?’
Why not?
He pours one each for us; then he pours one for Shil anyway, which she kills in a single gulp. That done, she eats half the nuts in the bowl and fills her pockets with the rest.
‘You they feed,’ she tells him. ‘Us they starve.’
‘I’m not them,’ Haze says.
———
If Haze is right, our two badges and his own skills are enough to hide us from the lenz we’re going to find on the ceiling of every corridor in this ship. And we have a plan for dealing with anyone we meet.
We are going to kill them.
And if Haze is wrong, we are going straight to the second part of that plan.
I’m holding the SIG-37, combat style. Slightly raised, so I can sweep the corridor outside my room. Haze has my knife and Shil carries the five-braid’s pulse pistol, his knife, and a set of my throwing spikes.
Overkill, I recko
n. But if it makes her happy, that’s fine.
The rest of the Aux are seven decks down.
I’m tempted to kill the general first, then his staff officers. Sometimes you just want to eat pudding early. All the same, I make myself wait.
Victory First Last and Always is large enough to need escape decks every five levels. What interests me most is that General Tournier’s own quarters are directly above the largest escape deck. Not sure that says anything good about him.
Not sure I care, either.
If there’s a pod on that escape deck big enough to take us all — and there’s any of us left to take — then we’re going to take it, and should that pod turn out to be for General Tournier’s own use, so much the better.
Lights in the upper corridor remain dim as we pass. Lenz sweep from side to side without seeing us. Emergency stairs open and shut their fire doors, seemingly without noticing.
Haze is concentrating. That’s why he is in the middle.
I take point and Shil brings up the rear. Although we bunch tight. Both Shil and I are working hard to keep Haze feeling safe while he runs his routines. It’s like old times, and that makes me realize how badly Hekati gets to me. Give me a proper battle every time.
Behind me, Haze snorts.
‘What?’ I say.
He opens his eyes as if seeing the stairs for the first time. ‘One battle coming up,’ he says, adding sir as an afterthought.
‘You think?’
‘All hell’s about to break loose.’
So now, I’m smiling too. Setting the SIG-37 to thirty seconds certain, five minutes likely and fifteen highly probable burns battery, but the gun started this with a full power pack, and I have another on my belt. Makes lugging it around all this time worthwhile.
‘Talk to Haze,’ I tell the gun. ‘And keep me updated.’
This just leaves Shil. For once, she is not scowling; her face simply looks puzzled. ‘But you can do that, sir.’ Shil means the ju-ju shit.
‘Haze and the gun guard. We fight. Someone has to.’
‘And that’s us?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’s us.’
She has the Vals’ implants in a flask on her belt. It is the best I can do: stuffing the implants into a water bottle before tipping ice on top. I have told her we owe the Vals that. She’s wondering if I am one of the good guys after all.
My orders to Shil are simple. We find the general, we kill him. Everyone and everything is expendable: that includes her, it includes Haze, and it includes me. Nothing in there she doesn’t already know.
‘Sir,’ says Haze, sounding worried.
I turn back, SIG in hand. ‘What?’ I demand.
‘Being scan—’
Shil drags his unconscious body into a doorway. As she does, a lenz flicks towards her and locks on to where she is crouching. Except the lenz obviously didn’t catch her, because it continues its run and then scans back without stopping.
‘Sir,’ says Shil.
‘More trouble than he’s worth,’ I say about Haze.
I’m joking, almost . . . We are three levels above General Tournier’s quarters, and six above where the Aux are being held, or sleeping, or whatever their bloody status is. According to the SIG, there are guards outside the elevator to the general’s level, outside every escape deck, and on the corridor where the Aux are.
The stairs are deserted. They are, however, alarmed.
‘SIG,’ I say. ‘You can deal with it, right?’
‘What, you think I’m fucking human? Of course I can deal with it.’ The SIG’s enjoying itself, you can always tell.
‘You,’ I say to Shil. ‘Wait here until all hell breaks loose. Then drag Haze to the escape deck. If you can’t do that, head for the level below. We’ll find you on our way up.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I toss her a grenade. ‘Take this. You might need it.’
She nods, gratefully.
‘And Shil.’ Must be something in my tone that makes her glance up and then look away.
‘Sir?’
‘That night you were captured . . .’
She wants to wave away what I’m going to say, because she thinks I’m apologizing. She’s wrong. ‘You shouldn’t have come back for me. You should have retreated when I gave you the order. Next time you do as you’re told.’
Shil scowls at me.
‘Understand?’
‘Yes, sir. Understand, sir.’
‘What do you understand?’
‘Next time someone wants to kill you, sir, I’m to let them.’
Chapter 48
I HEAR THE FIRST GUARD’S NECK BREAK. UNFORTUNATELY, SO does everyone else, it echoes so loudly off the walls of a corridor. Scrabbling at his holster, the second guard takes a spike under his chin. I don’t even bother to throw, just flip the spike and ram. Slapping it with the heel of my hand makes the entire thing disappear.
As the second guard goes cross-eyed, the guard beyond him acquires a neat hole in his forehead. There’s no splatter pattern of blood or spilt brains on the bulkhead behind, and I am impressed.
See, the SIG can do silent when it tries.
The fourth man does what the first, second and third should have done. He dives for an emergency button on the wall. He doesn’t reach it. Entering the guard’s eye, the subsonic bullet bounces around inside his skull, pulping memories. ‘And for my next trick,’ the SIG says.
A ceiling lenz glitches, giving me time to drag the bodies into a nearby elevator and punch a button for fifty floors below. As the doors close on them, I check the corridor both ways. A sign on the wall beside the elevators reads This floor: NCOs only. I’m already trying one of the dorms.
Rolling over, a trooper spots my officer’s uniform in the light coming from behind me and decides faking sleep is a good choice. Makes me wonder what goes on around here. Three other dorms pass in quick succession. And I’m opening a fifth door when someone grabs me.
Neen has his knife under my chin.
I have the SIG under his.
‘How sweet,’ my gun says.
‘Sir . . .‘
‘Shut it,’ I say.
Franc, Rachel and Emil wait in the half dark behind him. A couple of guards lie dead behind them. And a dozen beds lie empty beyond, no sheets or blankets, just mattresses. Looks like they are being kept in isolation.
Jerking my thumb at Emil, I say, ‘Behaving?’
Neen nods. ‘Perfectly, sir.’
‘Betray us,’ I tell Trooper Emil, ‘and it’ll be the last thing you do.’
‘That’s great to see you too,’ says my gun, in case our newest recruit isn’t good at translating.
‘Sir,’ says Neen. ‘Question?’
‘What?’
‘Where are the others?’
I’m impressed he includes Vijay and Haze and doesn’t just ask about Shil. But then I spot the worry in Rachel’s eyes and know he is asking on her behalf as well, because she doesn’t quite dare.
‘First point,’ I say. ‘Shil’s absolutely fine.’
Franc flicks me a glance I’m not meant to see. I know that much when she bites her lip. Seems best to ignore it. ‘Haze had a turn. They’re both waiting above. Not sure about Vijay.’ Have to stop myself from calling him the colonel.
Haze’s being scanned has me worried.
The five-braid’s dead, General Tournier doesn’t yet have that level of power, the ship’s AI might be clever, but no more so than the SIG-37 . . . Who does that leave to do the scanning? Only an Uplifted. All flashing lights, memory crystal and arrogance. Or a higher-ranking Enlightened than the one we killed.
Has to be a braid, I think.
‘Sir,’ says Rachel. She sounds worried.
More time has passed than I was aware of. We’re in a different corridor. Actually, we’re not in a corridor at all. We’re about to finish climbing a flight of emergency stairs. Senior Officers Only, says a sign.
Been here before, I think, opening a doo
r. In a tight gap, on the other side, wait Haze and Shil.
‘You . . . ?’ asks Neen.
‘Yeah,’ Shil says. ‘I’m fine.’
That is the extent of their conversation.
Although he wraps one arm briefly round her shoulder when he thinks we’re not looking. And she flicks him the kind of smile that says, quit fussing.
———
The internal emergency doors in Victory First have portholes. That’s one difference between Enlightened and Octovian ships. No way would General Jaxx let anyone ruin his immaculate matt-black doors. Also, Enlightened doorways double as airlocks, all of them.
A door, a space deep enough to take six people, then another door. Heavy bolts are fixed above and below each one, ready to lock it down.
‘Modular, sir,’ says Haze.
‘What?’ I look at him.
‘This whole ship,’ he says. ‘Each section is a mirror of a bigger section. Boxes inside boxes. The design reflects Uplift theories of the hive.’
I’ll take his word for it.
Using a porthole, Neen checks the corridor beyond.
It’s empty in one direction. In the other, two guards wait outside General Tournier’s cabin. As he watches, two guards become four. A Silver Fist nods, another laughs. And then the first two head towards a bank of elevators.
‘Changing shifts,’ Neen whispers.
We wait some more.
A few minutes later Rachel blunders through the outer emergency door, and stares around her. She does a good impression of a woman lost. Also drunk, and slightly dishevelled. Shaking out her hair, she turns back and both guards take the bait.
‘Wait,’ says one.
‘No way,’ Rachel gives another shake. ‘Wrong floor.’ She looks at the expensive carpet. ‘Very definitely the wrong floor.’
‘Where do you want to be?’
‘On a water bed,’ says Rachel. ‘In a hotel overlooking a blue lagoon. With flying fish breaking through the waves and a double sun rising and setting.’
Who knew she could be so poetic?
‘You and me both,’ says one of the Silver Fist.
To follow Rachel through the door is a misdemeanour in anybody’s army; although being on a charge is the least of his worries. Yanking him inside, Franc stabs him through the heart and kicks his twitching body down the stairs. It tumbles as far as a half-landing and jams against a bulkhead.
