by Ian Whates
Jayce and Troy heaved Dev onto a stretcher, then picked up either end.
“Those rumours are bullshit,” Vassallo shouted after them. “Orbital only experiments on captured Tanks!”
Dev kept up his screaming as the other two placed the stretcher in the ring then ducked back under cover. So far there had been no captured Tanks. Just faceless shelling and the sense that they were being watched. By something.
All were surprised when a dark speck hovering like a vulture turned out to be a MedEVac copter. It swooped down close, extended pincers snapping, grabbed poor screaming Dev, and shot back up into the grey and brooding sky.
“Hey – come back you motherfucker! What about the rest of us? You can’t leave us stranded here!”
Tangier kept on shouting. Vassallo stared across the smoking battlefield. Some of the all-terrain vehicles were still on fire. Some of the walls still crumbling of their own accord.
The rhythm of the copter blades was soothing. The planet had looked uninhabitable from the air. Litany: mostly useless rock, not enough water anywhere but the equator. That was where Reaper dug itself in deep; Executive Connect’s pharmaceutical division. Protecting patented weed had seemed easy enough, only the weed didn’t stay in the neat, dark strips where it was seeded. That weed had taken on a life of its own, clogging the air with stinking spores, twisting and poking into every nook and cranny. Infecting their machinery, jamming up its gears. Inducing nightmares, according to Satordi. And then, when the taste of the stuff had soured their water, their food and even their tobacco, bombardment started and jacks started getting killed. Rumours were whispered of similar scenarios on more than a dozen ExConn-seeded worlds. Of vat-grown terrorist insurgents: enormous, fit and organised. Resistant to high calibre persuasive interrogation. Self-terminating at their own convenience. Bloody hard to kill at anyone else’s.
“Lotta DNA spilled on this damn rock,” Satordi mumbled, fiddling with his gun. That man was always fiddling with something.
Sergeant Vassallo grunted in response. They stood and watched until the MedEVac copter and its wriggling, screaming cargo were reduced to the size and shape of a migrating bird.
WHAT VASSALLO NOW recognised as foreboding had hit when they first glimpsed Litany from space. That dark belt squeezing the equator. Transplanted, mutagenic pharmacrops with a multi-syllabic name. Referred to as ‘the weed’ by anyone who worked with it.
His gut warned there was something tainted about this dreary rock. Rumours of the weed mutating in unexpected ways. That its market value had already dropped by half. That the real reason the jacks were there was to gather intel on the Tanks. Terrorist insurgents that, six weeks ago, had not been firing at them.
No matter. Vassallo was on a mission of his own, tipped off by rumours of something worth big money. Something the pre-ExConn colonials left behind. Something all he had to do was find.
But after six weeks of intermittent rain, mud, blood and chasing shadows, Vassallo concluded that Litany had no secrets. There was nothing here worth anything: no rare mineral deposits, no seam of carbonado fancies. No weapons other than the Tanks themselves – if they were real.
Half their complement was already dead, leaving him stuck with dregs he couldn’t trust. Executive Connect’s Dark Harvest fireteams: cheaper than drones once they’d signed away their rights. Jacks like all jacks everywhere: mostly men, but not all. Mostly folks with bad credit ratings, reputations, attitudes or issues. Some were obvious recipients of bad advice. Smart enough to survive three weeks of basic. Dumb enough to enlist with ExConn in the first place, thinking they’d be getting a fresh new start. Most were running from something: someone they killed or failed to kill. More often than not their own demonic shadows.
At least two were serving community service placements. Satordi gave off a muted rapist vibe. Jayce was clocking hours towards her own command. Stolk, he might have considered an embedded corporate spy, only the kid seemed way too bright-eyed-dumb for that. A real know-it-all.
The rest were refugees from high unemployment stats, folks who figured shooting industrial terrorists was better than starving in some shanty ghetto.
“Tank breaking cover, dead ahead at twelve o’clock.” Satordi grinned like a crazy man as what looked like a giant, semi-indestructible, vat-grown hairless ape stepped out into the open. The rest of them primed their weapons, expecting the thing to charge at the very least. But the creature stood its ground, scoping out their ragged camp, head cocked to one side like it was listening.
“Where’s its weapon?” said Jayce.
The Tank moved.
“Fire!”
Satordi and Tangier emptied several clips into it, then whooped and hollered like it was the end of someone’s war. The others joined in. Not Vassallo. Vassallo was waiting for the punchline. The follow up. The follow through. The point.
“This is where it gets interesting,” said Stolk. “If I’m right – and I’m pretty sure.”
Vassallo frowned. “What gets interesting?”
“They’ll come,” said Stolk. “The nuns. They always do.”
“NUNS YOU SAY?”
“Wait... Wait... no. Yes! They’re coming now...”
Two hours past Dev’s evacuation and the subsequent blasting of the creature in the ruins, the bored jacks glanced to where Stolk was indicating, half expecting a drone, although they’d seen no drones on Litany thus far. Relentless ExConn blanket bombing had reduced the former settler capital Desiderata to rubble. Dark Harvest was tasked with mopping up the evidence.
Talk of tank-grown supersoldiers with impenetrable skin and embedded neuroprocessors had seemed ridiculous back on Platform, slouching around and waiting for the drop. Blurred images siphoned from patched perimeter feeds. Half man, half beast, all meat-and-gristle. But there’d been no trace of beast in what they’d killed. Just a man. A big one, yes, but still. Blasted to pieces that needed to be retrieved, only now Stolk was making them wait for no good reason.
Jayce rolled her eyes. “There’s nothing out there, dickwad. Just our kill and busted up old ruins.”
“I’m telling you...” said Stolk, his voice trailing off so that all they could hear was their own boots pressing into gravel. “When there’s a body – or parts thereof – that’s when the nuns turn up. Watch!”
Sergeant Vassallo spat loudly on the ground, then looked towards the eastern aspect where smoke from yesterday’s incendiaries was still emitting thick, choking gouts of sickly yellow. “Smells like concentrated piss,” he said, nose twitching involuntarily. “I hate this fucking weed-infested strip.”
The whole fireteam, Vassallo aside, stared intently at the blasted patch of ground where Stolk was pointing. “Wait for it,” said Stolk. They waited.
A gentle tinkling carried on the breeze. A smudge of colour that for a moment might have been flame, but wasn’t. It was cloth. Dirty orange-brown and it was moving.
“Told you,” said Stolk, looking very pleased with himself. “I’ve seen them before – exactly the same, back when I was stationed on Agnes-Blanche.”
“You were never on Aggie-Blanche,” said Troy, a straw-haired teen from the Agricantus ghetto.
“Two damn winters full of it,” Stolk answered. “Same Pharm-A paychecks. Flushing out mutant freaks – and them,” he emphasised, pointing at what could now be seen clearly through the dregs of dissipating smoke. “Turning up in the aftermath of every kill.”
Six figures, easy to see as their robes cut a stark contrast against grey stone rubble and smoking craters.
“Looters,” said Satordi, his slack jaw working on a worn out wad of gum.
Even Vassallo was staring now as the small forms – women, by the looks of them – picked their way in single file across the ground.
“Not looters,” said Stolk, in a learned tone, standing up straight, tucking hands into his pockets once he realised he had everyone’s attention.
“Spies then? From one of ExConn’s Pharm-A rivals?”
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“Nope. Not spies.” Stolk lowered his voice, as if sharing some great secret. “Nuns, like I keep telling you. From some way back religious cult. Used to know the name but I’ve forgotten.”
“What the fuck is a nun?” said Troy.
“Like the Sisterhood of Damnation and Salvation – didn’t you do school?” said Jayce.
Troy shrugged. Vassallo pulled out a field glass and trained it on the six. “Don’t like the look of them. Could be insurgents. Could be in disguise.”
“They’re holy women,” said Stolk. “Watch what happens next.”
They watched, Satordi slapping the safety off his CheyTac660. Just in case. The others heard the sound but didn’t copy.
The corpse wasn’t easy to spot. Grey stone dust covered everything that wasn’t already shrouded in lingering smoke. The nuns, identical at a distance, sifted rubble.
“Gross,” said Troy.
None of the others spoke. The kid was green. He hadn’t seen anything yet.
With great gentleness, the nuns placed salvaged body parts together, then continued to search.
“Told you they was looters.”
“Will you shut the fuck up and watch!”
“Looking for wood,” said Vassallo. “Not much to burn out here.” He took a crushed, hand-rolled cigarette from his top pocket, then pinched it back into shape. Placed it on his lower lip, patted his trouser pockets until he found what he was after.
“Blessing the corpse?” said Satordi uncertainly.
“Nope,” Vassallo lit the tip of the cigarette, drew on it hard, held the smoke deep in his lungs.
“Cremating it.” Smoke blasted out of both nostrils, then dissipated quickly without trace. “Right, Stolk?”
“Right!” Stolk liked it when Vassallo agreed with him. It didn’t happen often. “It’s a spiritual thing. Takes ’em hours. They sit there chanting till it’s done, then they muck about in the ashes for souvenirs.”
“Souvenirs?”
“To them, the Tanks are holy. Diamonds and pearls are supposed to form in dead Tank ashes.”
“Bullshit,” said Satordi, aiming his weapon, squinting through the scope.
Sure enough, yellow-orange flames were soon licking up from the base of the rough, triangular arrangement of wood, mostly salvaged from the splintered doorway of a building no longer standing. The nuns sat in a circle around the pyre, palms pressed together, shaven heads bowed deep in prayer.
“This is their holy war. Gotta try and see it from their perspective.”
Satordi wasn’t interested in other people’s perspectives. He kept his finger on the trigger, right eye glued to the scope, still trained on the group of chanting, praying nuns.
“They might be enemy soldiers,” said Troy. “How are we supposed to know what they is or ain’t?”
“In disguise,” added Satordi.
“What kind of a disguise is orange bed sheets?”
“You could fit a Luger under there. Easy peasy.”
Vassallo shook his head.
“You saw that Tank up close before you air conditioned it. Built like a brick shithouse. Biceps like cypress roots. Those skinny little runts aren’t soldiers – no matter what ordnance they might be packing under bed sheets.”
“They might be gathering intel. Reporting back to those monster tank-grown motherfuckers.”
“Stolk knows all about it,” said Jayce. “Ask him anything. He’s a regular walking Wiki.”
Stolk looked up. He’d been taking notes. “I’m just interested is all. Don’t you ever get interested?”
Satordi snorted. “I’m interested in lots of things. Like when we’re busting off this lousy rock.”
He didn’t look at Vassallo when he spoke, but they’d all been thinking it. Too many had died. Even by the pathetic standards of ExConn’s contractual obligations, Dark Harvest should have been evacuated by now.
“We stay until the job gets done,” said Vassallo grimly.
“And what job might that be?” said Satordi. “If the weed’s no good, it means we won’t get paid.”
Nobody said anything after that. A cold front started moving in, with brooding skies to match. The nuns kept chanting, regardless, even when drizzle forced the jacks back under cover of ripped tarpaulin.
“What kind of religion makes you pray out in the rain?”
“An old one,” muttered Jayce. “Stolk reckons they pray to some fat old god.”
Stolk nodded. “Like I said, they’re raking for holy relics. They stay put, even under fire.”
“Diamonds,” said Jayce, grinning. “That sounds interesting.”
Satordi’s eyes widened.
“No no... not real diamonds. They call it ringsel. Supposed to be pearls of concentrated purity. Or something.”
“So not real diamonds,” said Satordi, shifting his weight.
Jayce pulled a face.
Stolk raised his glass to see what the nuns were doing. “I got up real close to some of them, back on Aggie-Blanche. At first you think they’re all the same, like sisters, only they aren’t. Not if you look careful. You can make out the different –”
“Come on, let’s get moving. We got no time for this.” Vassallo flicked the butt of his cigarette against a low stone wall – or what was left of it.
“I want to stay and watch,” said Stolk.
Vassallo sniffed. “Fine, mercenary, suit yourself.”
“DON’T LIKE THE look of that sky,” said Vassallo. He sniffed deeply, like a dog. “I don’t like the smell of it.”
“Smoke from the bombardment.”
“Something else.”
They all looked where he was looking, as if something might be gleaned from moody grey-on-grey. Stolk was the only one not checking out the weather front. His glass was aimed in the opposite direction where the nuns were still hard at their chant and prayer.
“How come you know everything, Stolk?” said Satordi. “You some sort of archaeologist?”
Stolk lowered the glass. “No, man. Read a lot is all. It’s kind of interesting, don’t you reckon?”
“No. I don’t reckon. Not if the diamond thing is bullshit. What I reckon is we ought shoot them.”
“Sociologist is what you mean,” said Jayce. “Archaeologists do ruins. Not much architecture going down here before ExConn. Not unless you count those cinderblock bunkers.”
“Well, actually...”
“Oh, so you an expert on Hargreave System colonial architecture too now are you, Stolk?”
Stolk’s face reddened further.
“Anything coming through on the link?”
Tangier tapped his earpiece, then shook his head.
“Those nuns of yours – they got a temple?”
Stolk shrugged. “Probably targeted in the first wave of blanket bombings. Just in case, you know, they were harbouring insurgents.”
“Better to be safe than sorry,” said Jayce.
“Better,” agreed Satordi, polishing his gun.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE they’re still sitting out there.” Satordi paced back and forth, shiny pulse rifle slung over his shoulder. “Any word from Orbital? Did Dev get up there safe?”
“Nothing for hours,” said Tangier. “Some kind of interference.”
“So what about the rest of us – when do we get lifted off?”
Vassallo stared out over the battlefield at the grim and dirty sky, at the thunderhead sweeping in across the plain like it knew what it was doing. Which might have been the truth of it. They’d all heard the chit chat before making planetfall. Rumours easy to ignore before the service robots started acting funny, the weed got moving of its own accord and the Tanks turned out to be real as advertised.
Some said the terrorist insurgents of Litany did more than grow their soldiery in vats. That they brewed their weapons of mass destruction by harnessing elemental forces. Hot rocks blasting randomly from natural subterranean foundries. Base Four dissolved in a boiling mess of lava, despite the ge
ological survey claiming it safe. Despite them all being kitted up and standing by. Why wouldn’t they harness the very wind itself? Or the air or the darkness or whatever other magic those godless squatters conjured into being.
The wind whipped up, snatching roughly at the tents and tarps, scattering half-filled plastic canisters and other sundry items like dead leaves.
“I don’t like this,” said Vassallo.
Stolk was already on his feet, dusting ashy grit from his trousers, shooting a final glance out at the nuns. The wind slammed into them, knocked a couple sprawling. They didn’t flinch, just stood up again, backs ramrod straight, continued with their chant like nothing happened.
The thunderhead kept its distance. The rain it heralded did not. It pummelled down in violent blasting sheets.
Stolk kept watch on the nuns through a rent in the tarpaulin. By then the rain had slackened off and steam rose off the streets in great white gouts.
“I don’t trust ’em, Sarge,” said Satordi, nudging Stolk aside, ripping the tarpaulin hole till it was big enough to see through without stooping. “They’re still at it. Up to something. Planning an attack. Gathering intel, laying charges. I dunno but I can smell it. I know a pack of terrorists when I see one.”
“You’ve never seen a terrorist, son,” said Vassallo. “Nobody has. Not out this far. Just done over colonists, contract strip-miners, smugglers, religious whack jobs fleeing persecution in the Belt.”
“Those tank-bred insurgents...”
“No such thing. Just freedom fighters with differing definitions of the word and the accompanying states of mind.”
Satordi opened his mouth but he didn’t get the chance to argue. An explosion rattled the tentpoles, their already battered stacks of supposedly sensitive equipment and Vassallo’s dental implants.
“What the –”
“Too close for comfort.” Tangier fired up the seismograph and slammed it down on the stack of charts covering their one and only portable table.
