by David Gunn
They come in hard and fast, and they’re being careful this time. Two fly ahead, the other waits behind, high enough to avoid any explosion that kills its outriders.
‘Missile about to launch,’ says the SIG.
‘Change its mind.’
‘Haven’t got time,’ it says. ‘I’m busy.’
‘You can be replaced.’
‘Sven,’ says my gun. ‘You don’t mean that.’
‘Try me.’
The SIG stops what it is doing, which turns out to be keeping us steady. As everything lurches, my head hits the side of my chair and we start to spin. ‘I’m sorry,’ says the gun.
The rear Z7x launches a missile that flicks past us, and turns in a tight curve to head straight back for a second go. ‘Really,’ we hear the gun saying. ‘You’ve got this completely wrong.’
The missile disagrees.
So the gun copies the ID patch from the fighter, pastes it onto our tug and deletes the original. ‘See,’ it says. ‘I told you.’
Avoiding us in a blur of white heat, the missile takes out its original owner. A split second later we have a blizzard of steel fragments, ceramic shards, traces of organic matter and some water vapour. I only know because the SIG tells everyone.
‘Thank you,’ I say. My gun pretends not to hear.
———
At the last second, the next attacker loses his nerve and stands down his missile.
‘Get him,’ I tell Shil.
She fires, and a harpoon streaks away. She’s left the tether attached. I am about to bawl her out for being stupid when I realize the wire is free at our end. When I said untie the tether I meant at the harpoon end.
Obviously.
Well, it’s obvious to me.
As we watch, her harpoon flips ahead of the fighter; which hits the quarter-mile length of industrial hawser dragging behind it. A Z-class mining tug, and we’re a Z-class mining tug, can drag a ten-thousand-ton asteroid out of orbit. Dragging is the easy bit. It’s getting the asteroid moving first that is tricky. That’s where the wire comes in.
Thin it might be, but God it’s tough.
The Z7x spins away. One wing is sheered off close to its fuselage. The fighter has lost the wrong retro to halt its spin. The next thing we see is an explosion as the Z7x hits the outer edges of the belt.
‘Good shot,’ I say.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘My pleasure. Now do it again.’
‘Kinetic energy/hit-to-kill,’ my gun announces suddenly.
We won’t be talking this missile out of anything. It’s dumb as a stone. No targeting AI and no warhead, just a length of titanium-tipped steel. The speed of the incoming fighter gives the steel bolt its power. And because the hit-to-kill launches head on, our speed is added too. We’re talking closing velocities of three point five miles a second.
‘Haze,’ I say.
‘Sir,’ he says. ‘I’m on it.’
‘No . . . Hand navigation back to the SIG.’
‘Sven,’ says Colonel Vijay.
‘Know what I’m doing, sir . . . And, I need Haze.’
‘Switching roles now,’ says our pet Enlightened. His face blanks, and then we’re spiralling away as the SIG twists us out of the way of the first hit-to-kill. Another fighter flicks past and the SIG twists again, but that’s unnecessary.
This fighter still has its bolt slung underneath its fuselage.
Now the Z7x has to go round again. That’s going to be a long loop, because it will need to ramp up its speed for the next hit-to-kill.
Except that fighters are shaking free from Victory First like bees from a hive. As for the mother ship, that’s turning for the asteroid belt. Read-outs on the heat signature say it is about to gather speed.
Desperate times, my old lieutenant used to say, desperate measures.
You take ground and then you keep taking ground until casualties make further advance impossible. Life used to be so much simpler in the Legion. Reminding myself of that doesn’t make me happier. But what does happiness have to do with it? If I have to embrace the kyp then that is what I have to do . . .
‘Haze,’ I say, my voice harsh. ‘On my count.’
‘Sir?’ he says.
‘Lock me down.’
A wall rises around me as my count hits zero.
I’m somewhere else. Although my body is back in a Z-class mining tug. Has to be, because it’s not here. The wall smells like ice and tastes like . . . Who the fuck knows? How do you put words to something like this?
‘Hekati,’ I call.
The air inside her shell is thin, getting thinner. The sea is gone. All the mirrors in the hub are broken or ripped out of true and those towns not crumbling are burning up. The oxygen mix is so thin the grass no longer burns, it chars direct to ash.
A young woman grabs her child and runs. She dies under the feet of men running in the other direction. Whole villages flee for safety they don’t find. Because safety no longer exists in Hekati and will never exist here again.
Everybody has stuff that shames them. Troopers more than most, but we do our job so other people don’t have to. At least that is what I believe.
This, I tell myself, this is different.
Hekati agrees.
She’s dying in front of my—
Fighting free of the horror, I find myself on my knees in the crewpit. The kyp in my throat is so excited it is trying to crawl its way out of my mouth. It can’t, of course. Those hooks go too deep into my gullet.
It’ll kill you, Paper told me. Right around now, I believe her.
Colonel Vijay tries to lift me into a seat but I shake him off. ‘Shouldn’t be here,’ I tell him. ‘Should be back there. Haze . . .’
Haze nods.
Hekati’s waiting for me this time. A firestorm of emotions and a thousand clashing voices all joined into one scream. She’s scared, and she’s furious, and she’s so tired of life that it hurts. Not sure I want to know this stuff.
‘Sir,’ says a voice. ‘Sir.’ ‘Leave,’ I tell Haze. ‘Get out while you can.’ Who are you? Hekati says. Sven. Human? Had this conversation once before. A few months back. But that was with a ferox. And everyone knows that ferox can’t talk.
Mostly, I say.
But not now?
No, I say. Not now . . . Rummaging among the million images she’s receiving, I find one of the Victory First. It is seen from Hekati’s view, little more than a heat signature laid over six exhaust cones. Only now, the exhausts look tiny.
This is what hurt you, I say.
Hekati probes the edges of that thought.
It stole your air and water; it ripped a hole in your shell; it broke the mirrors and took away your sun; your hills are crumbling, wind’s stripping dirt from the fields; the people now dying inside you are dying because of what this thing did.
The people now dying inside you . . .
Pavel’s in there and I don’t care what happens to him. But so is his daughter Adelpha, and her new husband. So is Kyble, and the boy with the dog, who found enough courage to challenge our shadows in the night, and the girl who pissed on her own doorstep, not knowing she was watched. For all I know, the miners we met on the river bed are still in there. If they lived this long. A world is dying, and those dying don’t even know why.
That machine will kill another like you, I say. It will kill again. If you don’t halt it now . . .
Doubt fills her.
As what I have said isn’t true, I don’t blame her. Only I realize it’s not doubt about the Silver Fist ship killing another habitat that troubles Hekati. It is the thought of having to kill her own people.
She’s quick.
Already aware of what I am asking.
You’re dying, I tell her. Your shell is ripped and your mirrors are broken. You cannot stop what is happening. When you die, those you protect will die.
The fact Hekati doesn’t disagree tells me she knows it.
Why let them suffer in d
arkness? I say. There is a kinder way . . . I feed her the memory of my blade sliding beneath Franc’s ribs.
Chapter 58
‘DEATH OR GLORY,’ I TELL THE COLONEL.
He smiles, realizes I mean it and loses the smile. You don’t need to be Haze to work out which of these is more likely.
‘Endgame?’ he asks me.
‘Yes, sir,’ I say.
‘Carry on.’
Firing up the drive, the SIG charts our quickest route into the asteroid belt. We have a hundred fighters looping in a circle towards us but we can reach the belt before they reach us if we burn everything we have.
‘Neen,’ I say. ‘Kill anything that gets in our way. Use the lasers.’
He salutes.
‘Shil . . .’
She looks at me. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘About what, sir?’
The fact you were captured. The sheer bloody mess in which we find ourselves. The fact people don’t always like chaos, and I forget that.
‘Ilseville,’ I say.
Shouldn’t have said some of the things I said to her there. Shil almost shrugs, and then catches herself. ‘I’m sorry too, sir.’ Sounds like she means it.
‘Refasten the harpoon ropes.’
Saluting, she turns on her heel and leaves the crewpit. I send Rachel and Emil after her with orders to calibrate the harpoon guns. I have no idea what it means, but the SIG assures me it’s necessary.
‘Haze . . .’
He turns, face slick with sweat.
‘You all right?’
He takes a deep breath, steadies himself. ‘Yes, sir,’ he says. ‘The braid knows you talked to Hekati. He doesn’t know what you said.’ There’s something envious in his gaze. I’ve talked direct to a habitat.
The timing on this is going to be tight.
An asteroid field waits. A few minutes for us, and fifteen seconds for a Z7x, running at half speed. But fighters are short-burst machines, and we are luring them away from their mother ship. Plus the visible edge of the field might be ahead, but we’re already passing into its margins. An area that contains dust and grit. Even tiny slivers of rock will kill you if they hit you fast enough.
Hekati . . .
No answer.
Just rage and sadness.
And a slow burn in a power core that once kept mirrors angled to the ring and air scrubbers working, and tides running around a ring world, when physics says this was impossible.
When that core blows, it is going to destroy everything in its path including us; unless we can hide ourselves behind something big enough to protect us from its blast. And the only thing big enough out here is an asteroid. Of course, to be protected, we’re going to have to tie ourselves to the asteroid first.
‘Sir—’ says Haze.
‘I know.’
Leaving him standing there, I go to find Rachel and Shil. They’re in an observation bubble slung below the tug’s nose. That’s how old this craft is. The glass is thick, though its radiation shielding is worn and dust has frosted the bubble enough to make the emptiness beyond look grey not black.
Our ship twists once.
‘A fighter,’ says Neen, his voice echoing from a wall speaker.
‘Status?’ I demand.
‘All clear,’ he says.
What we felt was the SIG taking evasive action. The fighter doesn’t have time to loop round again. It doesn’t have room either. We’re closing that gap on the asteroid field fast.
All we need now is for this to work.
A fold-down sight hangs open in front of Rachel. She is making cross-hairs line up with each other. ‘You almost done?’ I ask.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Sir . . .’ Haze has panic in his voice. ‘Hekati’s core is going critical.’
Looking up, Shil glances at Rachel, and then catches my gaze. ‘That’s good,’ I tell her.
She looks like she wants to disagree.
‘Shil,’ I say. ‘Trust me.’
Strange how women always twist their mouths when I say that. After choosing a vast asteroid, I have my gun position us behind it. And then I tell the SIG-37 to take us as close as it can without crashing into the thing.
‘OK,’ I say to Rachel. ‘Now fix me a line.’
Should be easy. We’re a Z-class mining tug for Godsake. And I’m sat in an observation pod — with five harpoons slung below me, a joystick for aiming — next to one of the best shots I have ever met. ‘Do it,’ I tell her.
Rachel’s first harpoon skids across the asteroid’s surface, disappears into space and drags the line behind it. Shil has re-fixed the wires. I know that, because the whole tug twitches slightly when the harpoon reaches the end of its run.
‘Concentrate.’
She aims carefully.
This time a small section of asteroid cracks free.
‘Sir,’ says Haze. ‘We should—’
Only I’m not listening, because I am staring at the shiny scar revealed by the last harpoon. Rachel’s third attempt snags on a small outcrop, but begins to come free the moment we start the winch. So we stop winching and leave the harpoon snagged where it is. Whatever is under that asteroid’s skin, there’s no way we are going to fix a harpoon into it. We might as well try to hang a picture by nailing glass.
‘Haze,’ I say. ‘How long?’
He knows what I’m asking. How long before Hekati explodes? How long before the mother ship gets us in range? How long before a Silver Fist fighter noses its way through the boulders out there and takes another shot?
‘A minute,’ he says. ‘Maybe a minute thirty.’
It takes me ten seconds to scramble out of the harpoon pod, another fifteen to grab a helmet from the wall and fix it over my suit.
‘Running safety routines,’ the helmet says.
It shuts down in a squawk of protest as I override its routines. ‘Open,’ I tell an airlock.
The bloody door stays shut.
‘SIG,’ I say.
Lights glitch on a control panel, and now I have two emergency systems screaming at me. They’re wasting seconds I don’t have. They’re wasting seconds none of us have. Inner door opens, inner door shuts.
The outer door blows at the SIG’s command. And I exit the tug like a cork from a bottle, straight into the side of the asteroid. I might as well try shoulder-barging a cliff.
‘Take care,’ says a voice.
How sweet of Colonel Vijay to remember me at a time like this.
A rib broken, I think, perhaps two. Blood fills my mouth, but that’s me biting my tongue when I hit. I barely notice, because I’m too busy clinging to the asteroid surface.
‘Please, God,’ someone says.
Sounds like Shil. We can’t end like this. I won’t let it end like this.
As my fingers hunt for a fresh grip, my boot finds a crack and I scrabble hand over hand towards the harpoon above me. It straddles a gap between the floor of the asteroid and a rocky outcrop. The line is kinked round the harpoon’s middle and that helps keep it in place. A simple yank will set it free.
But I don’t want to set it free. I want that line tied tight enough to tether us to this bloody great rock.
‘He’s not going to make it . . .’ They have the comms channel open, and I can hear resignation in Colonel Vijay’s voice.
‘Yes, he is,’ Shil says firmly.
I grin.
‘Sir,’ says Haze, ‘Hekati’s about—’
‘Closer,’ I order. As the tug shifts, I grab the line and wrap the slack once round the outcrop. I’m about to wrap it a second time when Haze’s scream tells me to let go the line. He’s right. As the world ends, it snaps the line tight and ties us to the outcrop. At least it feels like a world ending.
Hitting a glancing blow, the Z-class slides off the asteroid and yanks at its new tether. Sound doesn’t travel in space. But I can feel that wire hum in my head.
Cut me in half if it snaps, I think.
; The wire holds, and the tug swings back to glance off the asteroid again, only less violently this time.
Imagine a storm. Then make it a thousand times worse.
Instead of wind, imagine flames from an exploding nuclear core.
Replace torn scraps of paper, dead leaves and broken bottles with chevron glass ripped from the roof of a world and rubble collected to act as shielding. Mix in armour plating from a splintering mother ship, ion drives the size of a small town, disintegrating Z7x fighters and body parts from four thousand troopers. Then add the scream of a dying AI. A scream that echoes so loudly it adds new colours to the inside of your head.
That doesn’t even come close.
Hekati explodes in all directions.
But the mother ship is between Hekati and us. So pieces of both come our way. Instead of water, it rains rubble and molten metal. And the bulk of the asteroid we hide behind is the only thing that protects us from a firestorm of slowly cooling plasma where Hekati used to be.
Shutting my eyes makes no difference.
Anyway, why would I want to shut my eyes? How often does anyone get to watch shit like this? It is the biggest bang we will ever see.
‘Boss,’ says Neen.
‘That’s sir,’ I say.
Rachel laughs. And though there is hysteria in her voice, it’s under control when she speaks, which is only a second later. ‘Should have known you’d be all right.’
‘Yeah,’ says Shil. ‘Impossible to fucking kill.’
‘I heard that.’
‘You were meant to.’
We have lived through the destruction of a world. We’ve taken down a mother ship, or, if that’s too big a stretch, we took down an epsilon-class cruiser and we’ll give the mother ship to Hekati. May she sleep well and have a better life next time.
As I cling to the rock and listen to their chatter, I know they’re writing their own legend. We have no right to be alive. Mind you, no one does. That’s line one, paragraph one of the Octovian constitution.
Chapter 59
HAVING HELPED ME INSIDE, COLONEL VIJAY OFFERS ME HIS hand. That’s officers for you. Real ones, I mean. ‘Officer on deck,’ shouts Neen.
The Aux come to attention.
Undoing my helmet, the colonel grips it by its lower edge and twists, freeing it from its safety locks. As I drag air into my lungs, he says, ‘You left that a bit tight.’
